{"id":173524,"date":"2026-06-18T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=173524"},"modified":"2026-06-18T17:10:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T21:10:29","slug":"phyllis-graber-jensen-a-retrospective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2026\/06\/18\/phyllis-graber-jensen-a-retrospective\/","title":{"rendered":"Phyllis Graber Jensen, a Retrospective"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On June 12, with Reunion in full swing, Phyllis Graber Jensen, the college\u2019s longtime director of photography and video, did something highly unusual. She showed up at a Bates College event without any camera, save the one on her cell phone, and she did not make a single image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s because the event was the opening of the Bates College Museum of Art\u2019s exhibition, Phyllis Graber Jensen: Picture Stories, <\/em>which will be up through Sept. 19. Curated by museum Director Carrie Cushman, this is a true retrospective of Graber Jensen\u2019s work, spanning her time from student photographer to staff photographer at the Boston Herald<\/em> and then her 31 years in Maine at Bates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"overview
A quiet moment before the crowd arrives for the opening of Phyllis Graber Jensen: Picture Stories <\/em>at the Bates College Museum of Art. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition takes up the entire first floor of the museum, and on Friday evening, fans of Graber Jensen\u2019s work, from alumni (including former student workers) to faculty and staff, as well as her family, filled the space to capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to the audience, Graber Jensen praised the \u201cimagination and vision\u201d of Cushman, who joined Bates in August 2025 and took on the retrospective as the first exhibit she would curate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a gift and a privilege to have someone of such immense talents and kindness, someone who barely knew me and had just arrived on the scene, take such an interest in offering context and insight to the work I produced during the last 50-plus years of my life,\u201c Graber Jensen said. \u201cThat\u2019s lots of ground to cover in a very short period of time. Yet she persevered, and here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are 91 objects on display, including 51 newly printed and archival photographs, and ephemera such as contact sheets, cameras, and newspapers from Graber Jensen\u2019s time as a photojournalist. And of course, many, many photographs from her time at Bates.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Graber
Bates Director of Photography and Video Phyllis Graber Jensen and Director of the Bates Museum of Art Carrie Cushman share a hug at the opening of the exhibit of Graber Jensen’s work that Cushman curated. (David Ernst\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cWorking with Phyllis on this show has meant that I have gotten a crash course on the past 31 years of Bates history, but also a really deep understanding of the spirit of this place, of what makes Bates Bates<\/em>,\u201d Cushman told the gathered crowd. Every photograph contains a story, she said, and, \u201cI encourage you to pick one out, and ask Phyllis tonight, and she\u2019ll be able to recall, without hesitation, who is in the photo, what they taught, where they worked, what they majored in, their graduation years! This in addition to all the details that led to the making of the photo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That recall is a testament to her intellect and her fortitude on the job, Cushman said, \u201cbut also to the tremendous amount of care that she takes with her work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bates
Colleagues and supporters celebrate Bates Director of Photography and Video Phyllis Graber Jensen. From L to R: Patti Lawson, David Ernst, Aly DeMarco, Kirsten Marjerison, Kristen Lainsbury, Phyllis Graber Jensen, Mary Pols, Sean Findlen \u201999, and Theophil Syslo. (Rene Roy for Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cushman\u2019s scholarly essay on Graber Jensen\u2019s work serves as the introduction to the book accompanying Picture Stories<\/em> (available for purchase at the museum and at the Bates College Store) and an assessment of her work in the medium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In it she writes, \u201cI have not heard Phyllis describe herself as an artist, but she is keenly aware of her responsibility as a maker of visual material (as I believe all great artists should be), and she approaches that responsibility with a creative spirit and relentless curiosity that positions the photographic medium as an essential mode of storytelling, inquiry, and community building \u2014 photography at its best.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"former
Bates Director of Photography and Video Phyllis Graber Jensen signs a book to Lincoln Benedict \u201909, who worked with Graber Jensen when he was a student at Bates. (Rene Roy for Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Graber Jensen\u2019s earliest forays into the medium include photographing her brother Norman, who, when they were children, was often mistaken for her (and vice versa) and her documentation of the women\u2019s liberation movement in Denmark in 1975 when she was a Cornell undergraduate studying abroad. She continued to make photographs during  her time in graduate school for journalism at Boston University, and then as a stringer for the Associated Press<\/em>. About 15 images in the exhibit come from Graber Jensen\u2019s eight years as a staff photographer at the Boston Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a biographical section that chronicles her time as an early \u2014 pre-Title IX \u2014 advocate for girls and women in sport when she was just a teenager, wanting to play tennis competitively. During the 50th anniversary of Title IX, a New York Times<\/em> reporter wrote about Graber Jensen\u2019s fierce determination to challenge the status quo in a story headlined The Forgotten Teenage Trailblazer of Women\u2019s Tennis<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Kevin
Kevin Callalhan works on getting everything just right for the opening of Phyllis Graber Jensen: Picture Stories <\/em>at the Bates College Museum of Art. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Graber Jensen joined Bates in 1995 as a staff writer but by 2002 was working as a photographer and multimedia producer,\u00a0 just as the social media age was taking off.\u00a0 In the years since, Graber Jensen, more than any other person, has been responsible for creating, nurturing, and stewarding the college\u2019s visual identity, a role she honors with a dedication that extends well beyond an eight-hour workday.\u00a0 On campus, she is too recognizable \u2014 and beloved by students \u2014\u00a0 to truly melt into the background the way she might like, but her methods are purely journalistic and her energy unmatched by anything but the care she brings to an assignment.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Want to visit?<\/strong> Summer hours at the Bates College Museum of Art <\/a>are Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The museum is closed on Sundays.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

For Cushman, a scholar who has specialized in Japanese art and worked extensively in photography, it\u2019s evident that Graber Jensen came to her profession with an intuitive approach to putting subjects at ease. In the accompanying book, Cushman writes that Graber Jensen\u2019s quiet assurance and empathy result in \u201cimages that feel genuinely of their moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere\u2019s what I have found,\u201d Graber Jensen said to the crowd gathered at the museum Friday night, telling them she was paraphrasing documentary photographer Eve Arnold. \u201cIf a photographer brings compassion and curiosity to an assignment, that\u2019s a lot. It\u2019s those qualities, rather than the camera, that lead to a trust between photographer and subject and yield strong photographs. I hope that the framed ones on these walls reflect some of that compassion and curiosity. Call it an obsession, but it\u2019s really a love story with Bates and its community from which I hope never to recover.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Graber Jensen plans to retire late this summer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Phyllis
The catalogue for the exhibition Phyllis Graber Jensen: Picture Stories <\/em>includes many photographs from her time at Bates and beyond, with an introduction from museum director Carrie Cushman. It’s for sale at the museum and at the Bates College Store. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Graber Jensen credits former Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs Sean Findlen \u201999, who was her supervisor until 2022, with planting the seed for the exhibition. \u201cAt one point, before he left, he said \u2018I\u2019d love to see you have an exhibit at the museum,\u2019\u201d Graber Jensen remembers. Findlen remembers that he might have even said it would be a \u201ccrime\u201d if such an exhibition didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPhyllis\u2019 work reflects the soul of the college and its many facets, contours, and angles,\u201d Findlen said. \u201cShe has an eye that sees the heart of any situation and the skill that brings it to life in a picture. She\u2019s simply the best of the best.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition is made possible with funding from the Jane Costello Wellehan Endowment Fund, the Dorothy Stiles Blankfort \u201931 Fund, the Alex Katz Foundation, and Bates Arts Collaborative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On June 12, with Reunion in full swing, Phyllis Graber Jensen, the college\u2019s longtime director of photography and video, did something highly unusual. She showed up at a Bates College event without any camera, save the one on her cell phone, and she did not make a single image.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1283,"featured_media":173569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-batesnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1283"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173524"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173614,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173524\/revisions\/173614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}