Jeannette Flamm Brockman, celebrated photographer and former assistant dean at Penn, has died at 87
In 2014, she published a book of photos that captured scenes of sorrow and grief after 9/11. She called it “Prayers at the Gate.”
Jeannette Flamm Brockman, 87, of Haverford, celebrated photographer, former assistant dean at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Fine Arts, photography teacher, mentor, patron, and volunteer, died Saturday, Dec. 21, of heart failure at her home.
Intrigued by the feelings and emotions that dramatic photographs can evoke, Mrs. Flamm Brockman created hundreds of memorable images of people, objects, landscapes, and important public events that shape our lives.
In 2014, she published a book of photos that captured scenes of sorrow and grief after 9/11. She called it Prayers at the Gate, and the 68 pages of text and poignant images show handwritten notes, flags, flowers, crosses, yellow ribbons, and other personal mementos left by visitors at ground zero in New York, the Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania, and a popular religious shrine in New Mexico.
“When I first photographed at ground zero, there was much evidence of destruction at the site,” Mrs. Flamm Brockman said in a preface in Prayers at the Gate. “But I also saw an outpouring of love.” Many of those photos reside permanently at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York.
In 2005, The Inquirer published a story about her Prayers at the Gate photo exhibition at the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral, and the Rev. Richard Giles, then dean of the Cathedral, said: “The work is so powerful in terms of the immediate history of our country and it’s application to Lent and the suffering of Christ.” Mrs. Flamm Brockman told The Inquirer: “They left part of themselves to be with those who mourn.”
She also published Along the Trail in 2015, and its 60 pages document breathtaking scenes she encountered on some of her favorite hikes in Pennsylvania, Maine, New Mexico, California, and Washington state. “So much to see and hear today, along the trail,” she said in the preface.
“Jeannette Flamm combines beauty, artistry, and spirituality in her photographs. Her images also reveal the complexity of humanity.”
She made intimate photographs of refugees navigating new starts in a project she called Crossing Over. Her Windows book features unique structures and natural designs framed in windows, and Isolated Beauty is a collection of Haverford College campus landscapes.
Her photos appeared in The Inquirer and other publications, and colleagues called them “powerful and enduring” and a “sensitive record.” Beginning in 1995, she showed in solo exhibits at Penn, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Haverford, Sarah Lawrence College in New York, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Michigan, and other locations.
They also reside in permanent collections at the New Mexico History Museum, the Museum of International Folk Art in New Mexico, and Haverford College. “It is my hope that my photographs allow the visual to become the visceral,” she said in a writing, “so that the heart sees what the eye sees.”
Mrs. Flamm Brockman joined Penn in 1977 as registrar at the Penn Museum. She became chief development officer for the Graduate School of Fine Arts in 1981 and director of development for the university libraries in 1986. From 1992 to 1995, she was assistant dean for external affairs for the Graduate School of Fine Arts.
“Her work dignifies these tender expressions of sympathy, validating the tenacity of hope.”
For more than two decades at Penn, Mrs. Flamm Brockman obtained funding, supervised extensive building renovations, coordinated library development programs, and managed alumni affairs and public relations. Later, she taught photography for the Penn Graduate School of Education’s Say Yes to Education program for underserved Philadelphia students.
She was trained in field archaeology and Middle Eastern studies, and worked on archaeological digs in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere around the world. She spoke English, French, Italian, Arabic, and Hebrew.
She was active with the American Friends Service Committee in the 1960s, the Pennsylvania Heritage Commission in the 1970s and ‘80s, and spent more than 15 years on the board of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
“She was so filled with life, with art, with food, and with kindness,” a friend said in an online tribute. Longtime friend Katie Seiden said: “I will miss her forever, her intelligence, art, poetry, photographs, and caring.”
“I get to think of her often as I reflect on the pictures. And, of course, I never left her garden without an arrangement.”
Jeannette Marion Flamm was born May 11, 1937, in Brooklyn. She joined Jewish youth organizations in high school and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1958 at Sarah Lawrence and a master’s degree in Middle Eastern history at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1961.
She met Robert Brockman on an archaeological dig in New Mexico in 1957, and together they volunteered to assist disaster relief efforts in Morocco and Italy. They married in 1959, had sons George and Joshua, and lived in California, New Mexico, Philadelphia, Lansdowne, and Denmark before settling in Haverford in 1972. Her husband died in 2011.
Mrs. Flamm Brockman was an avid gardener, and she tended her plot in Haverford for more than 50 years. She liked to cook and send letters and cards adorned with photos and poetry to family and friends.
She translated Egyptian text for the University of California Press, personally endowed programs at college libraries, and represented the Sarah Lawrence alumni association in Philadelphia. “She said, ‘Don’t let life get in the way of your good humor,’” her son George said. “She was a very funny, creative, and supportive mom.”
Her son Joshua said: “I’ve always treasured her hugs and her adventurous spirit, courage, independence, and boundless creativity, which I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”
In addition to her sons, Mrs. Flamm Brockman is survived by two grandchildren and other relatives. A brother died earlier.
Services were held in December at Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El in Wynnewood.
Donations in her name may be made to HIAS Pennsylvania, Box 8688, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101.