Showing 13 results

Ruth Jean Blodgett (American-Canadian, 1945-2020) was a curator known for her work on Inuit art and associated with a number of Canadian museums including the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Blodgett was born in Moscow, Idaho and grew up in Prosser, Washington. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Colorado before pursuing a Master’s degree at the University of British Columbia (1974). Blodgett’s MA thesis on multiple human images in Inuit sculpture proved foundational to her career. As a curator at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (ca. 1976-1979) she produced exhibitions on Jessie Oonark, Inuit shamanism and the artists of Povungnituk, among other topics. Through the 1980s, Blodgett worked as a freelance curator, producing significant exhibitions for the Art Gallery of Ontario (Grasp tight the old ways : selections from the Klamer family collection of Inuit art, 1983, and North Baffin drawings: drawings collected by Terry Ryan on North Baffin Island in 1964, 1986), the London Regional Art Gallery (Etidlooie Etidlooie, 1984), and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Selections from the John and Mary Robertson collection of Inuit sculpture, 1986). By 1984 she had moved to Ottawa where she taught courses at Carleton University. Blodgett was Chief Curator of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection from 1988 to 2000, where she co-led the borrowing of the Kinngait archive of drawings and produced exhibitions and publications on Inuit graphic arts. Her major book on Kenojuak Ashevak was published in 1981 and went through 6 editions. Blodgett moved to Fairbanks, Alaska in 2004, where she was a visiting professor in Arctic Art at the University of Alaska and participated as an expert team member in travel expeditions for Adventure Canada. During this time she continued to do freelance research projects such as In the Shadow of the Midnight Sun for the Art Gallery of Hamilton (2007). Jean Blodgett died in Fairbanks in 2020.

Paul Bennett (1928-2014), curator and arts administrator, was the first Field Director / Adviser of the Art Institute of Ontario (1959-1964). He then became Director, serving until 1968.

Anita Aarons (1912-2000) was an Australian-born artist, educator, curator and arts administrator who was active in Toronto from 1964 to 1984. During her time in the city she taught at Central Technical School, was the allied arts editor for Architecture Canada (1965-1971), worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario as a curator in the Extension Services department in the early 1970s, and became the founding Director of the Art Gallery at Harbourfront (precursor of The Power Plant), 1976-1984. In 1985 Aarons moved to Noosa, Queensland with her husband, the artist Merton Chambers, where they were both instrumental in the establishment of the Noosa Regional Gallery.