“Borduas 2.0”: Updating the online Paul-Émile Borduas Catalogue Raisonné

François-Marc Gagnon
Founding director and distinguished research fellow

Dominic Hardy and Gilles Lapointe
UQAM/Équipe de recherche en histoire de l’art au Québec (ÉRHAQ)

In 2008, the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsly Institute for studies in Canadian Art launched the database and website Paul-Émile Borduas: Catalogue raisonné (www.borduas.concordia.ca) thanks to the leadership of Director emeritus and renowned Borduas scholar François-Marc Gagnon. A decade later, Dr Gagnon is spearheading an initiative to update the catalogue and the database and to provide new tools and links helpings users to find relevant information on the website. This timely initiative recognizes the impact of ongoing research into Borduas and his work, as well as the rapid changes in the digital humanities environment that are transforming art historical practice make this update effort especially important.

Since November 2017, thanks to support from the Institute, Dr Gagnon has led a pilot project in collaboration with fellow Borduas expert Gilles Lapointe and his UQAM colleague Dominic Hardy at the Équipe de recherche en histoire de l’art au Québec (ÉRHAQ) with the goal of building an operational framework that will ensure the sustainability and development of the online Borduas database.

In this informal Afternoon at the Institute conversation, François-Marc Gagnon, Gilles Lapointe and Dominic Hardy joined by René St-Pierre, UQAM graduate student, digital archive expert and coordinator of the project, will present their first findings on the research and technological issues that are at stake as the team envision the place of the Borduas initiative in the wider transformations of Québec and Canadian art history.