Jean Blodgett was an American-born curator and prolific writer devoted to Inuit art who spent her career in Canada.
[1] Blodgett was born in Moscow, Idaho but moved with her family to Prosser, Washington in 1946 where she grew up.
[4] From 1988 to 2000, she was Chief Curator at the McMichael, also serving from 1990 to 2000, in the role of Director of Collections & Programs, as a member of the team responsible for long-term planning.
She was involved in numerous publications and exhibitions, and was particularly renowned for her Inuit shows and research such as In Cape Dorset we do it this way: three decades of Inuit printmaking (1991); Strange scenes: early Cape Dorset drawings (1993); and Three women, three generations: drawings by Pitseolak Ashoona, Napatchie Pootoogook and Shuvinai Ashoona (1999).
She continued to broaden the McMichael's scope by curating and writing about contemporary artists including shows about Gerald McMaster (1991), John Hartman (1993), and Tim Zuck (1997) and Doris McCarthy (1999).