Ancestral Portraits
Item
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Title
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Ancestral Portraits
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Creator
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Wesley Wehr
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Artist ID
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2
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Date of Work
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1984
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Description
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Pen and colored ink drawing with abstract figure.
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Category of Media
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Painting/drawing/mixed media on paper
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Media
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Pentel color pens, graphite, ink
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Accession Number
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1984.025
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Location
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storage
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Date Acquired
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1984
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Acquisition Method
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Donation, unrestricted
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Dimensions of Work
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5" x 6"
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Donor ID
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126
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Artist Bio
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Wesley Wehr (April 17, 1929 – April 12, 2004), a gifted musician at age 19, was invited in 1949 to tutor the painter Mark Tobey (1890-1976) on the piano. Thus began Wehr's close relationship with Tobey and ultimately with all the artists and friends of the Northwest School. Wehr kept letters, recorded statements, and took notes of conversations. His archivist leanings have greatly helped preserve knowledge of these artists' lives and work. Tobey encouraged Wehr to pursue painting and he created masterly miniature landscapes that have garnered him wide recognition. In later life, he explored his passion for archeology and paleobotany and became a curator at the Burke Museum. He is author of a memoir of the artists of the Northwest School, "The Eighth Lively Art: Conversations with Painters, Poets, Musicians, and the Wicked Witch of the West."
Source: https://www.historylink.org/File/3848
For complete biography of Wehr, see Deloris Tarzan Ament's Iridescent Light: The Emergence of Northwest Art(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002).
Wesley Wehr was integral in helping to build Evergreen's art collection in the 1980's, through connections with faculty Sid White, who directed the "Gallery Management and Exhibition Design" academic program and internship. Wehr made many donations, facilitated many more, and was guest curator for the 1984 exhibition, "Helmi Juvonen; Observations and Transformations," shown concurrently at Evergreen Galleries and WA State Capital Museum. (2023, Devon Damonte, student in the program 1985-87)
