Women at the Helm: How Jean Sutherland Boggs, Hsio-yen Shih, and Shirley L. Thomson Changed the National Gallery of Canada

Text by Diana Nemiroff

When Jean Sutherland Boggs was appointed to direct the National Gallery of Canada in 1966, she became the first woman to direct a major museum in Canada and the first to direct a national gallery anywhere in the world. The subsequent appointments of Hsio-yen Shih in 1977 and Shirley L. Thomson in 1987 built upon this milestone, creating a remarkable precedent for the Canadian and international museum world.

Women at the Helm explores a transformative thirty-year period in the history of an iconic cultural institution through the careers of three directors. From their leadership style to the challenges they overcame and the contributions they made to the institution, Diana Nemiroff considers the circumstances of their remarkable tenures and the obstacles still faced by women in leadership roles today.

Diana Nemiroff is an art historian and a former curator of contemporary and modern art at the National Gallery of Canada. 

Published in collaboration with the McGill-Queen's University Press and the University of Toronto Press Publishing

Additional information
Year of publication‏ : ‎ 2021
536 pp. ; softcover
Col., ill.,  ‎19.05 x 3.3 x 24.13 cm
In English