Chris Lehwalder Scrimshaw on Mammoth Ivory "Port Blakely 1899" (1991)

Chris Lehwalder (American, active XX and XXI century). "Port Blakely 1899" scrimshaw and pigment on mammoth ivory, 1991. Signed at lower center. Titled, dedicated, and signed again on base. A thick section of mammoth tusk, polished on its face and engraved in color with a crowded harbor at Port Blakely. A forest of square-rigged masts lines the mill wharves. Tall plumes of white smoke rise from the sawmill stacks against dark conifer hills, and a snow-capped peak catches a pale gold sky. In the middle distance a sidewheel steamer cuts across green-blue water, and a drifting log sits in the foreground. The fine rigging lines are cut into the ivory with a scribe and tinted with pigment, so the scene reads like a hand-colored engraving. The artist left the tusk's rough, weathered rind along the lower edge in a wavy contour, setting raw material against precise draftsmanship. The piece is signed "C. Lehwalder" at lower center and stands on a shaped wooden base with banded inlay and inscribed ivory panels, one titled "Port Blakely 1899." Chris Lehwalder was born in Seattle. His father was a decorated B-17 pilot who later became a federal parole officer, and his mother was a cellist with the Seattle Symphony. All six children in the family began classical music at the age of five, and several became professional musicians or ballet dancers. Chris took the scenic route. After Linfield College and the University of Washington, he left school in 1966 to bicycle across Europe, knowing the draft would be waiting at the finish line. It was. He served in Vietnam with the Fourth Infantry Division and earned a Bronze Star. Back home he finished a B.A. in history, did graduate work at Western Washington University, and completed nearly all of a pre-med curriculum before admitting that medicine lit no fire. Art did, though he never had a day of formal training. Drawing houses for sale in Bellingham led him to the Alaska Silver and Ivory Company, which was then reviving scrimshaw on mastodon, mammoth, and fossil walrus ivory. Bored by jewelry, he and three colleagues broke away to make ambitious display pieces for collectors, some taking a month each. Their subjects were whales, jungle animals, and historic battles, engraved into polished ancient ivory with near-photographic precision. He has lived by his art since 1975. Scrimshaw, he notes wryly, took a hard blow from an ivory ban he voted for himself. In 1993 he moved to Portland and began painting en plein air. His oils and watercolors owe an open debt to Edward Hopper, with nods to Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood. He has exhibited from Astoria to Spokane, and galleries in San Francisco, Lahaina, and on Bainbridge Island have carried his work for decades. He now lives near Chewelah, Washington. Port Blakely, on the south end of Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound, grew up around the Port Blakely Mill Company. William Renton founded the mill in the 1860s, and by the late 19th century it was promoted as one of the largest sawmills in the world. Its harbor filled with deep-water sailing ships loading Douglas fir lumber for ports around the Pacific, which is the scene Lehwalder recreates here. The piece comes with a letter from the artist to the commissioning client, which reads: "Dear Mr. Fellmeth, Greetings from another corner of the country. At long last and just in time for taxes your piece is finished. It came out well so I am going to ask the full price, which I believe translates to 2550.00 remaining. I'm not awfully pleased with the pictures themselves - the fluorescent lights "blued" the colors somewhat. As time permits tomorrow I will inscribe the 3 white panels of ivory in the base "R. Fellmeth", "Port Blakely 1900", and my signature again. Altogether its an impressive piece I think - a huge raw chunk of Mammoth ivory civilized with a precise scene from another era. I'll be looking forward to your reaction, and hope that we may collaborate again in the future. Sincerely, Chris Lehwalder" A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids. Item # 205976

Estimate:$850

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