Hauberg, John H. (John Henry), 1916-2002

Seattle civic leader, art patron, and businessman.

John H. Hauberg, the grandson of lumber giant F.C.A. Denkmann (an early partner of Frederick Weyerhaeuser), graduated from the University of Washington School of Forestry in 1949 and became an early advocate of reforestation. His Pilchuck Tree Farm continues to be a research site for forest management practices. Hauberg also became a noted collector of Pre-Columbian, coastal Native American, and contemporary Northwest art. He was a patron and friend of such Northwest artists as Mark Tobey and Morris Graves. Through glass artist Dale Chihuly, Hauberg became a major benefactor of the Pilchuck Glass School, which was sited on Hauberg's tree farm. Hauberg was associated with the Seattle Art Museum for five decades, serving as its president 1973-1977. He was a member of the Diet, a select club of community leaders, and he served on the boards of numerous educational, community, and professional organizations, including the American Crafts Council and the Pacific Northwest Arts Center.

From the description of John H. Hauberg papers, 1923-2001 (bulk 1949-1991). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 52379313

John H. Hauberg was a businessman, civic leader, philanthropist, and patron of the arts who helped to shape the civic, political and cultural landscapes of Seattle for over four decades.

John H. Hauberg was born in 1916 in Rock Island, Illinois. His father, John Henry Hauberg, was an attorney, businessman and noted local historian. His mother, Susanne Denkmann, was the daughter of lumber giant F.C.A. Denkmann, an early partner of Frederick Weyerhaeuser. Both of his parents were active in Rock Island's civic and cultural life.

Hauberg first came to the Pacific Northwest in 1938 while still a student at Princeton University and spent a summer working in Weyerhaeuser Company logging camps. He returned to Princeton, but left the University for good in 1939. He went to work once again in the forest products industry, first in the mills in Everett, then in the Midwest for Weyerhaeuser. After serving in the Army from 1943-1946, Hauberg entered the University of Washington School of Forestry (now the College of Forest Resources) and earned a bachelor's degree in 1949.

At a time when the forest industry knew little of reforestation, Hauberg recognized and was troubled by the wasted potential of logged-off lands. Stands of red alder, a tree then considered to have no commercial value, were taking over where old growth cedar forests once stood. Hauberg envisioned putting these lands back into production of commercially valuable Douglas fir. But he first needed to create a bureaucracy-free environment in which he could explore the problems of forest regeneration over the long term. In 1948, while still a student at the University of Washington, Hauberg began purchasing logged-off lands near Stanwood, about 50 miles north of Seattle. He sought out tracts with tree stumps from old growth timber, indicators of the land's tree-growing potential. He quickly acquired his first 5000 acres by buying smaller family-owned properties.

Family and professional obligations left Hauberg only the weekends to devote to his tree farm. He continued to purchase tracts of land in the face of increasing competition from large timber company. In 1950, with the help of friends he planted his first Douglas fir seedlings. After about five years of experimenting with planting and spraying methods, Hauberg and the forester he later hired were able to find the right combination of actions that led to Douglas fir regeneration on high site, or highly fertile, lands. His innovative research attracted the attention of other forest products companies. Eventually, the Pilchuck Tree Farm would grow to some 15,000 acres, with over 11,000 acres in plantation. It continues to be the site of research in forest resource management practices as well as a commercially successful enterprise.

In spite of his success in the timber industry, Hauberg is perhaps more widely known as a generous benefactor of the arts and prolific collector of artworks. His art interests range from contemporary to Pre-Columbian American and from fine arts to crafts. He has a special interest in Native American art and culture, which he traces back to his father. The elder Hauberg was a student of the Indian tribes near Rock Island and avid collector of Indian relics. As a youth Hauberg spent two summers working with a Sauk Indian chief and a Fox Indian chief to construct a summer and winter house in the museum that would house his father's collection of Indian artifacts. Thus, when in 1950 University of Washington anthropologist Erna Gunther sought Hauberg's help in raising funds for the Burke Museum to purchase a collection of Northwest Native art, he responded eagerly. Hauberg and friend Phil Padelford raised the necessary $10,000 in just three days. In gratitude Gunther allowed Hauberg and Padelford to each purchase one item from the collection. Hauberg chose a raven rattle. That piece, for which he paid $25, became the first in what was to become the largest collection of Coastal Native Indian art in private hands. He would donate the bulk of this collection to the Seattle Art Museum in 1994. Hauberg also built an extensive collection of Pre-Columbian art.

Hauberg has been a patron and friend of many noted contemporary Northwest artists, including Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, and Paul Horiuchi. His long association with the painter Mark Tobey was especially notable. Tobey left Seattle for Basel in 1960. Hauberg, however, was committed to establishing an enduring Tobey presence in the Pacific Northwest. Among his first major art gifts was the Tobey mural, Journey of the Opera Star, that he and his first wife, Anne Gould Hauberg, commissioned for the newly constructed Seattle Opera House. In the late 1960s, the Haubergs proposed establishing a Tobey museum as part of a larger cultural center they envisioned on the Pilchuck Tree Farm property. The Pacific Northwest Arts Center was incorporated to serve as the umbrella non-profit organization for the Tobey Museum and other projects. To secure Tobey's cooperation Hauberg paid Tobey a substantial monthly stipend. The payments, which began in 1971, would continue for the remainder of Tobey's life. In return, Tobey executed a will which left his entire estate to a Seattle-area arts institution. Tobey subsequently made another will that left his estate to his companion, Mark Ritter. The existence of contradictory wills set the stage for a contest over the estate following Tobey's death in April 1976. A PNAC-commissioned film of Tobey in Basel was completed in 1972. Plans for a rural Tobey museum, however, were scrapped prior to Tobey's death, due to funding and logistical problems. The Pacific Northwest Arts Center was absorbed into the Seattle Art Museum, which eventually received Tobey's memorabilia and art works in Tobey's Seattle studio from the artist's estate. The memorabilia later came to the University of Washington Libraries as the Mark Tobey Papers, Seattle Art Museum Archives.

Hauberg has left his imprint on two of the Seattle area's important art institutions. His association with the Seattle Art Museum has spanned five decades. He was first named a trustee of the museum in 1950. In 1973, he succeeded Dr. Richard E. Fuller as President of the Seattle Art Museum. Fuller, the museum's founder, had operated it for 50 years as practically a private enterprise. It fell to Hauberg to turn the institution into a self-sustaining one. During his tenure as President the Seattle Art Museum was embroiled in the battle over the estate of Mark Tobey.

The museum also staged the hugely successful "Treasures of Tutankhamun" exhibit, which helped to stabilize the museum's precarious finances. After stepping down as President in 1977, Hauberg continued to serve as a museum trustee and played a significant role in the decision to site the new museum building in downtown Seattle.

Hauberg's association with the renowned Pilchuck Glass School dates from the school's very beginnings. In 1971, through the textile artist Jack Lenor Larsen, Hauberg and Anne Gould Hauberg became acquainted with Dale Chihuly, a young glass artist and instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Chihuly and fellow artist Ruth Tamura, armed with no more than $2000 in grant money and enthusiasm, proposed to run an outdoor summer workshop in glass art. The Haubergs stepped in to provide not only a site at the Pilchuck Tree Farm, but crucial financial and in-kind support for the workshop. The success of the 1971 summer session led the Haubergs to underwrite the workshop the following two summers and place it under the administration of the newly established Pacific Northwest Arts Center. During the mid-1970s the glass workshops began to evolve into a permanent entity. A non-profit, independent Pilchuck School was incorporated in 1976 ("Glass" would be added later), and a permanent campus was constructed on land deeded to the school by Hauberg. Yet for the remainder of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s, even as an administrative and fund-raising structure developed, Hauberg remained deeply involved in the school's operations. His personal leadership and financial support eased Pilchuck's growing pains and laid the foundation for the school's long-term success.

Following the example of his parents, Hauberg assumed an active role in Seattle's civic life and took a keen interest in public policy issues. He was a long-time member of The Diet, a select group of community opinion leaders who met monthly to hear speeches by fellow members. With the assistance of Christopher Bayley and Camden Hall, he authored a lengthy report entitled "The Present State of Future Problems-Project 1965." This widely read document examined sources of Washington state revenue and expenditures and recommended a course of action for the state's political leadership.

Hauberg has served on the boards of numerous educational, community and professional organizations with a diversity of missions. He has shown a special interest in the needs of the developmentally disabled. Hauberg was instrumental in the establishment of what became the Child Development and Mental Retardation Center at the University of Washington and founded Victoria Ranch, Inc., a residential training center for the developmentally disabled in Stanwood, Washington.

From the guide to the John H. Hauberg Papers, 1949-1998, 1949-1991, (University of Washington Libraries Special Collections)