Wehr, Wesley, 1929-2004

Wesley C. Wehr (1929- ) is a painter and writer from Seattle, Wash.

Wesley Wehr, a professor, artist, and paleobotanist at the University of Washington in Seattle, photographed the 1970 Mungo Martin memorial totem pole raising ceremony. Mungo Martin, a member of the Kwakwaka'wakw tribe, was a master carver who contributed to the preservation of his tribe's culture.

Painter, consultant, writer; Seattle, Wash.

Wesley Wehr was a painter, paleobotanist, correspondent, autograph collector, friend and champion of Northwest artists. He was born in 1929 in Everett, Washington, and grew up in Seattle. He was a graduate of the University of Washington where he studied musical composition and earned bachelor's (1951) and master's (1953) degrees. A friendship developed with Mark Tobey which continued throughout Tobey's lifetime. Wehr developed friendships with other Northwest artists, such as Morris Graves, Guy Anderson, and Helmi Juvonen. While at the University of Washington, he also studied poetry with Theodore Roethke and became acquainted with Susanne Langer, a visiting professor in 1953.

During the mid-1950's, while working as a watchman at the Henry Gallery, Wehr began to draw with pen and ink. In the 1960s he turned to painting. His first exhibit was at the Henry Gallery in 1961. His art career blossomed from that point. Another of Wehr's interests was paleontology. In 1978, he was appointed affiliate curator of paleobotany at the Burke Museum. In 1980, he discovered a species of extinct fern, which was name Osmunda Wehrii for him. Wehr began collecting musician's autographs while a high school student. Wesley Wehr died on April 12, 2004 in Seattle, Washington.

Wesley Wehr (1929-2004) was a local artist whose friends included such prominent Northwest artists as Mark Tobey and Morris Graves. Wehr was also a paleobotanist who served as unpaid affiliate curator at the University of Washington's Burke Museum and was the author of two memoirs.

Mungo Martin (Chief NaKePenkim) attended residential school briefly and was apprenticed to his stepfather, master carver Charles James. Martin, one of the Northwest Coast's most significant artists and mentors, contributed greatly to the preservation of traditional Kwakwak'wakw (Kwakiutl) culture and worked to instigate its resurgence. Martin restored poles and houseposts for the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology and for the Provincial Museum of British Columbia (now the Royal British Columbia Museum). He was chief carver at the Provincial Museum's Thunderbird Park. He also replicated and created new feast dishes, masks, dance screens, and other objects, both utilitarian and ceremonial. Martin recorded many oral histories and traditions as well as 400 songs. To celebrate the dedication of a carved half-scale replica of the house in which he was born, Martin held the first public potlatch since the rescinding of the governmental potlatch ban. Mungo Martin was posthumously awarded a medal by the Canada Council.