Steven L. Grafe Retires After 17 Years as Curator at Maryhill Museum of Art

Steven L. Grafe, Ph.D., has retired as Curator of Art at Maryhill Museum of Art after 17 years. During his tenure, he revitalized the Indigenous Peoples galleries, championed academic realists like R.H. Ives Gammell and Richard Lack, and grounded programming in Pacific Northwest ecology and history. Grafe oversaw exhibitions including 'Comics at the Crossroads' (2010), 'E. Irving Couse on the Columbia River' (2013), 'A Kaleidoscope of Color: American Indian Trade Blankets' (2016), and 'Northwest/Southwest: Indigenous Art After 1980' (2022). He acquired all contemporary Indigenous art in the museum's collection. Grafe highlighted challenges such as limited funding and storage space, and emphasized the importance of NAGPRA compliance, noting Maryhill returned items to Columbia River reservations in 2010. He praised the transfer of Fred L. Mitchell's collection to Tamástslikt Cultural Institute in 2026 as a model for tribal museums. Grafe plans to edit his wife's memoir about growing up in Ethiopia.