Jean Borgatti

Born in Shrewsbury/Massachusetts/USA.

Jean Borgatti studied Art History at Wellesley College (BA 1966) and UCLA (MA 1971 and PhD 1976). She initially focused on modern art but re-oriented her studies as a graduate student to the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the First Peoples of the Americas. She has conducted research among the people of Edo North in Nigeria, particularly the Okpella, for over 50 years — starting in the early 1970s (1971–1974, 1979, 2002–2004, and between 2013–2017).

She currently works as a consulting curator in her areas of interest at the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg/Massachusetts/USA. However, the majority of her career has been spent in academia, teaching at Clark University in Worcester/Massachusetts/USA, between 1984 and 2004 and then as an adjunct or visiting faculty member at several universities in New England. She also served as a professor of Art History at the University of Benin in Benin City/Nigeria between 2013 and 2017.

Borgatti has curated several long-term exhibitions at the Fitchburg Art Museum, most recently Africa Rising: 21st Century African Photography (2024/2025). Her work on portraiture in African (and World) Art has been described as seminal, with an exhibition curated for the Center for African Art in New York City (1990) and subsequent publications, including Likeness and Beyond: Portraiture in Africa and the World (1990), Portraiture in Africa, Parts I & II, African Arts 23 & 24, Jean M. Borgatti (ed.), Los Angeles, California (1990), and Constructed Identities: Portraiture in World Art in Kitty Zijlmans (ed.), World Art Studies, Leiden Art History Yearbook V.14, Leiden: Primavera Press, July 2008, pp. 303–324. She also conducted research on aesthetic preference among the Okpella, following up qualitative research from the early 1970s with survey research in 1979 and 2002.

Borgatti has received numerous awards and fellowships, including two Fulbright Scholar teaching and research awards (Benin City in 2002–2004 and 2014–2016) and a lifetime achievement award from the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) in 2014.