Patricia Bovey

LL.D, DCL, FRSA, FCMA, FDFS

Honorary Doctor of Letters

For over 50 years, Dr. Patricia Bovey has elevated and refined our understanding of Canadian art as a museologist, professor, art historian, gallery director, curator, mentor, and Senator.

Patricia’s connection to the University began in the mid-1970s, when she was hired as its first art curator. She built an art collection that enhanced our campus, and taught some of the first art history courses here.

She later established the graduate program in Curatorial Practices—the first art-oriented Master of Arts program in Manitoba—and taught in it too, mentoring dozens of emerging curators who now lead cultural institutions across Canada.

She was Curator of the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and Director of both the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. She also founded and directed the Buhler Gallery in St. Boniface Hospital, the first such gallery of its kind in Canada.

From 2016 to 2023, she served in the Senate of Canada, where she was instrumental in installing the first works of Black Canadian artists in the Red Chamber.

Patricia is also an esteemed author whose expertise is sought after from Scandinavia to Japan. In her public lectures and parliamentary addresses, she showed how art—especially art that presents difficult truths—is central to reconciliation.

A champion of diversity in the arts, Patricia has also consistently given voice to societal issues, from climate change to the legacy of residential schools, and has famously pointed out that if we want to comprehend our history, our present, and our future, we must look to the work of visual artists.

For establishing art history at UWinnipeg and for deep and abiding contributions to our appreciation of Canadian visual art, The University of Winnipeg is proud to bestow an Honorary Doctor of Letters on Patricia Bovey.