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The University of Winnipeg

Stephen Borys

Stephen Borys Title: Adjunct Professor
Office: Winnipeg Art Gallery (Directorate)
Building: WAG
Email: sborys@wag.ca

Degrees:
PhD, MBA

Biography:

STEPHEN D. BORYS is the Director and CEO of the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG), one of Canada’s oldest civic art museums, where he is overseeing the development of a national Inuit Art Centre, the first of its kind in the world. Under his leadership, the WAG has expanded and strengthened its role and profile in the community, as well as in the cultural and museum landscape in Canada and abroad with particular attention to Indigenous art and artmaking. At the core of his directorship is the goal of advancing a meaningful dialogue with the public, and creating in both physical and virtual spaces, a welcoming forum where art and artmaking is at the forefront with audiences and stakeholders. 

In addition to his directorial duties, Borys holds an adjunct professorship at the University of Winnipeg where he teaches in the History and Business & Administration departments. He was previously chief curator at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, at which time he held teaching posts at Florida State University and New College. Prior to Sarasota, he was senior curator and lecturer at the Allen Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio, and before Oberlin, he was assistant curator of European & American Art at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and a curatorial assistant at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal. He holds an Executive MBA, a PhD in Art and Architectural History from McGill University, a MA in Art History from the University of Toronto, and a BA Honours from the University of Winnipeg.

Borys has organized numerous exhibitions, written accompanying catalogues and scholarly articles, and lectured across North America and internationally. He is the recipient of several research and exhibition grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council, Canadian Museums Association, Winnipeg Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Borys is a graduate of the Getty Center’s Museum Leadership Institute and the Next Generation Program, and the Attingham Trust’s Royal Collections Studies Program, London. He was awarded Tourism Winnipeg’s Leader of the Year and Downtown Winnipeg BIZ Leadership in the Arts award in 2015, and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. Borys is a board director of the Canadian Museums Association, co-chair of the CMA Museums and Indigenous Issues Council, past board trustee of the Association of Art Museum Directors, past president and board director of the Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization, and an honorary member of the WAG National Indigenous Advisory Circle.

Dr. Borys lives in Winnipeg with his wife Hazel Mouzon Borys, the President of PlaceMakers, an international urban design and coding firm, and their son, Roman.

Affiliations:

  • Board Trustee and committee member for CMA (Canadian Museums Association), AAMD (Association of Art Museum Directors), and CAMDO (Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization)
  • Co-chair of Canadian Museums Association Museums and Indigenous Issues Council
  • Co-chair of CAMDO Canadian Holocaust Era Research project for Canadian museums      
  • Lecturer in North America and Europe on the changing models for the new museum
  • Adjunct professor at University of Winnipeg, University of Manitoba, New College
  • Getty Centre Museum Leadership Institute Fellow and Getty Next Generation member

Teaching Areas:
European Landscape Painting, 1600-1900; Impressionist Art; Canadian Art; Architectural History; 20th-century Design.

Courses:

HIST-4830/7830: History of Museums and Collecting

Publications:

100 Masters: Only in Canada.

Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2013.

Winnipeg Art Gallery: Guide to the Collections.

Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2010.

The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art: Guide to the Collections.

Sarasota: John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 2008.

Trace Elements: New Work at Oberlin.

Oberlin: Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, 2006.

The Splendor of Ruins in French Landscape Painting, 1630-1800.

Oberlin: Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, 2005.

The Changing Land: Modern British Landscape Painting, 1900-1950.

Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2003.

Treasures of the National Gallery of Canada.

Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2003 (contributing author).

Giuseppe Maria Crespi's "An Allegory of the Arts" Rediscovered.

Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada Bulletin, 2001, Volume 2.

Impressionist Masterworks from the National Gallery of Canada.

Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2000.