Image: Steve Grafe talking about Columbia River Plateau beadwork to Dr. Kirsten Gillibrand and students from Whitman College, May 7, 2025.
Grafe has been the Curator of Art at the Columbia River Gorge museum since 2009. In an exit interview with Justin Duyao at Oregon ArtsWatch, Grafe talks about his favorite exhibitions, Maryhill as an institution, and Indigenous art.
Excerpt from the article published on June 27, 2026:
“It’s official. Steven L. Grafe, Ph.D., has retired from his post at Maryhill Museum of Art.
Grafe has served as the Curator of Art for the small-but-mighty museum overlooking the eastern end of the Columbia River Gorge since 2009. During his tenure, Grafe revitalized the Museum’s Indigenous Peoples galleries, championed historically underappreciated academic realists (e.g., R.H. Ives Gammell and Richard Lack), and grounded the institution’s programming in the ecology and history of the Pacific Northwest.”
Read the article