Scope and Contents

Jean Borgatti's collection dates from 1971 to 2003 and is comprised of 3,617 slides, 3,625 negatives, 4 negative books, contact prints, an audio cassette, 25 Super 8 film reels, and 23,425 digtial images. The materials primarily document the Urhobo, Uzairue, Ishan (Esan), Etsako, and Otuo peoples.

Much of the collection depicts masquerades, festivals, and ceremonies, including the Aimhi masquerade, Akpele masquerade, Egbemamu masquerade, Egede masquerade, Egu (Egungun) Akachi masquerade, Ekpenike masquerade, Ekuede masquerade, Erelue Masquerade, Gelede performance, Idu masquerade, Igbagu masquerade, Igo masquerade, Igugu Festival, Ihuen Festival, Iyabana night masquerade, Obanagbedor masquerade, Obonodike masquerade, Ogabadi masquerade, Ogumogu performances, Okwema masquerade, Olimi Festival, Omese masquerade, Opha procession, Otsa masquerade, Otuo masquerade, Ugwonor masquerade, Ukpokolo masquerade, and Wanyoke masquerade. There are also images of title-taking ceremonies and paraphernalia, and shrines, including the Aziza, Ikumuku, Ituke, Okailopokai, Oshun, Ugbe Ebo forest shrines.

Images were taken primarily in Nigeria, including in Lagos, Ibadan, Benin City, Auchi, Owan, Ibadan, Idah, Oshogbo, Otukpo, Gombe state, Bauchi State, Benue Plateau State, Ugboha, Akoko-Edo, Ouidah, Bida, and Kano. Borgatti also photographed the Kumase area and Capecoast in Ghana.

Arrangement

Arranged into 4 series by format. Series 1, 2 and 4 are arranged chronologically and Series 3 is arranged alphabetically.

Biographical / Historical

Art historian and photographer Jean Borgatti's research focuses on cross cultural concepts of art and aesthetics, masquerades and festivals, portraiture, the Black Atlantic, and the continuities and discontinuities in African, African Diaspora, Oceanic and Native American art. An active photographer since at least 1971, she has worked primarily in Benin City, Nigeria and areas in northern Edo State, photographing the Okpella people and other Edo North groups.

Borgatti received her B.A. in Art History from Wellesley College (1966) and both her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Art History from UCLA. Since then, she has received fellowships, grants, and awards for research including a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities (1979-1980), a Sainsbury Institute Fellowship at the University of East Anglia (2005), and two Fulbright fellowships (2002-2004, 2014-2016) for lecturing and conducting research in Nigeria. She was also presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (2014) for her contributions to the field. She taught African and Native American Art History at Clark University for twenty years and has continued her affiliation with Clark as a visiting scholar and research fellow. Additionally, Borgatti has been a visiting scholar of art history and African studies at Boston University (2010-2016).

Borgatti has curated a number of exhibitions, including From the Hands of Lawrence Ajanaku (Museum of Cultural History Gallery UCLA and the African American Institute New York, 1979); Likeness and Beyond: Portraits in Africa and the World (with Richard Brilliant and Alan Wardwell), Center for African Art, New York, and the Kimbell Museum, Fort Worth, 1990); Global Africa: Creativity, Continuity and Change in African Art, 2014-2017, and several museum shows in which African works were placed "in conversation" or "face to face" with works from Asia, Europe, and America throughout the Fitchburg Art Museum (2011-2012). Borgatti has published more than twenty articles on African art with such varied topics as masquerades in Edo North (Nigeria), portraiture in world art, the art market, and individual African artists.

Dr. Borgatti is a consulting curator on African and Oceanic Art at the Fitchburg Art Museum (Massachusetts, 2010-present) and a Professor of Art History, Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Benin (Nigeria, 2013-2017).