Alexander Weygers
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Alexander George Weygers (October 12, 1901–July 23, 1989) was a
polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...
Dutch-American artist who is best known as a sculptor, painter,
print maker Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniqu ...
, blacksmith, carpenter, philosopher, mechanical engineer,
aerospace engineer Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is si ...
and author.


Biography

Weygers was born in Mojokerto,
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...
, where his Dutch parents, Albert Weijgers and Johanna van Leenhoff, owned and operated a
sugar plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
and a hotel. His mother taught literature and several languages at a high school in
Surabaya Surabaya ( jv, ꦱꦸꦫꦧꦪ or jv, ꦯꦹꦫꦨꦪ; ; ) is the capital city of the Provinces of Indonesia, Indonesian province of East Java and the List of Indonesian cities by population, second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. L ...
. Alex inherited his mother's linguistic talents and his father instilled a deep love of nature, design, and
ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
into him as he accompanied his father on botanical explorations in Indonesia. In 1916, his prosperous parents sent him to the Netherlands to study. First he attended a secondary school where, among other things, he studied the discipline of blacksmithing—which he often referred to as the "mother craft" of all
civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Ci ...
. He graduated from
Groningen Politechnicum Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...
in
mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...
and from a
Dordrecht Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after R ...
vocational university in
shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to befor ...
. He also briefly attended the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. Weygers returned to Java in 1923, and his fiancee, Jacoba Hutter, joined him there from the Netherlands in 1924, where they married. Jacoba could not adjust to the tropical climate, and in November 1926 they immigrated to the United States to take residence in
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
, where he was employed as a mechanical draughtsman. In September 1928, Jacoba died during the stillbirth of their only child due to hemorrhaging following a
Caesarean section Caesarean section, also known as C-section or caesarean delivery, is the surgical procedure by which one or more babies are delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen, often performed because vaginal delivery would put the baby or mo ...
. Devastated by the death of his wife, Weygers decided to abandon engineering for art. In July 1929, Alex took a summer class organized by the Art Institute of Seattle (the precursor of the Seattle Art Museum and unrelated to the identically named for-profit institution), studying sculpture under
Avard Fairbanks Avard Tennyson Fairbanks (March 2, 1897 – January 1, 1987) was a 20th-century American sculptor. Over his eighty-year career, he sculpted over 100 public monuments and hundreds of artworks. Fairbanks is known for his religious-themed commis ...
. He created one of his most notable sculptures, ''Mourning'', that caught the attention of world-renowned sculptor Lorado Taft in which he won a scholarship at Lorado Taft Midway Studios in Chicago. Following that he studied various aspects of art in the European centers that were renowned for the areas that interested him. Moving to
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
in the 1930s, he established a studio in
Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...
and began teaching. Alex was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1934. In August 1942, he entered the U.S. Army and his command of
Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...
, Dutch, Italian,
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
, and
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
led to his assignment to the intelligence operations. He received a
patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
from the
U.S. Patent Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexan ...
for his discopter in 1944 and his design has served as the
prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...
for other similar disk and hovering
aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...
that have been developed up to the present day. During his service in the army he was given a Carmel Valley property where, over several decades, he and his new wife, Marian, would build a retreat with a residence and studios, while he pursued his career teaching at Berkeley. Marian Weygers, his second wife, had graduated from the
University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...
as an art major where she worked and studied under
Chiura Obata was a well-known Japanese-American artist and popular art teacher. A self-described "roughneck", Obata went to the United States in 1903, at age 17. After initially working as an illustrator and commercial decorator, he had a successful career a ...
, who taught her
ink wash painting Ink wash painting ( zh, t=水墨畫, s=水墨画, p=shuǐmòhuà; ja, 水墨画, translit=suiboku-ga or ja, 墨絵, translit=sumi-e; ko, 수묵화, translit=sumukhwa) is a type of Chinese ink brush painting which uses black ink, such as tha ...
and design. She developed a printmaking process that she named "imprints from nature", using natural materials such as flowers, leaves, and grass as well as rocks and insects. Alex and Marian Weygers relocated to the Monterey Peninsula in the 1960s and settled into their former retreat in Carmel Valley that then served as their home and studios. This was the location of his death at the age of eighty-seven. Marian remained very active in environmental and civic issues in Carmel Valley until her death in 2008.


Artistic career

In 1937 Weygers was recognized with a
solo exhibition A solo show or solo exhibition is an exhibition of the work of only one artist. The artwork may be paintings, drawings, etchings, collage, sculpture, or photography. The creator of any artistic technique may be the subject of a solo show. Other s ...
at the Cliff Hotel in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
and was featured at the Oakland Art Gallery. His work was accepted into the San Francisco Art Association (SFAA) exhibitions of 1937 and 1938. The
San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
which began a discussion of Weygers by stating that they were "never given to idle flattery", stated that "Alexander Weygers as a modern
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
..." and continued, "...He commands attention because he is a success by any standard of excellence in half a dozen professions... a sculptor of heroic dimensions, an inventor, a marine, mechanical, and aeronautic engineer, an artist with a camera, a designer and illustrator, and a virtuoso practitioner of endgrain half-tone wood engraving. He is also blacksmith, machinist, carpenter, electrician, plumber, toolmaker, and beekeeper. He is further a teacher and a reluctant prophet upon whom the admiring descend." Before 1940 his work was included in the collection of the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
in
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
and was recognized as an artist of national significance.


Discopter

The "Discopter" was a vertical liftoff aircraft that looked very much like what was to be later termed "
flying saucer A flying saucer (also referred to as "a flying disc") is a descriptive term for a type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has g ...
". He made numerous detailed drawings of the aircraft portrayed in various American cities - specifically, San Francisco and Chicago. He sent these detailed plans to all the branches of the U.S. Military and was eventually told that they were intrigued by the concept and the design of the craft but were not prepared at that time because the war effort superseded its development. However, he did indeed patent the design for the "Discopter" in January 1944 with the U.S. Patent Office, and it served as the prototype for other similar aircraft that have been developed up to the present day.


Published works

Besides his works in sculpture, painting, photography, and
wood engraving Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image or ''matrix'' of images into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and ...
he is a published author in fields as diverse as philosophy, blacksmithing, and the creation of tools. Some of his most popular titles are ''The Modern Blacksmith'', ''The Making of Tools'', and ''The Recycling, Use, and Repair of Tools''; the first is sometimes described as the bible of blacksmiths. All of these have been compiled into a publication released posthumously in 1997 with the title ''The Complete Modern Blacksmith''.


Philosophy

Weygers's philosophical view was agnostic and he asserted that "Truth" was the source of life—being defined as the forces and concise designs inherent in Nature and her works. One of his students, Peter B. Partch, states that Weygers equated Nature with the concepts of deity among human cultures, and defined Nature as "the all-encompassing truth motivating all universal unseen forces, being self-governing and creating rock, plant, and animal evolution bound". Further, he relates that Weygers advocated that one should "live life to the fullest", by which he meant doing what one desires in life "for the love of it" rather than for fame or financial gain. Through living simply, and in accordance with his philosophy, each would gain the ultimate freedom possible and produce actions and works of great merit—adhering to a discipline that included learning how to continuously reduce reliance upon material needs. Weygers advocated the reuse of waste materials cast off as useless trash by contemporary societies by adapting them to other needs or making artistic creations with them.
Recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...
and
Sustainable living Sustainable living describes a lifestyle that attempts to reduce the use of Earth's natural resources by an individual or society. It is referred to as zero wastage living" or "net zero living". Its practitioners often attempt to reduce their e ...
are the current terms for his concepts.


Weygers Foundation

Randall Hunter founded the Weygers Foundation to create awareness and "to inspire innovation in the areas of the visual and graphic arts and self-sustainability". He died in 2017, and his efforts are documented in
Ashlee Vance Ashlee Vance (born 1977) is an American business columnist and author. His biography of Elon Musk, titled ''Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future'', was released on May 19, 2015. He lives with his wife Melinda and their t ...
's 2018 article, "The Forgotten Legend of Silicon Valley’s Flying Saucer Man".


References

* Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
http://www.weygers.com


External links


The Discopter Design

Picture of Alex Weijgers and his family in Mojokerto in 1902Alexander G WeygersThe Mysterious Genius Who Patented the UFO #BloombergHelloWorld
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weygers, Alexander G. 1901 births 1989 deaths Engineers from California 20th-century American painters American male painters American wood engravers Dutch wood engravers Dutch artists Dutch engineers Dutch emigrants to the United States People from Surabaya 20th-century American sculptors American male sculptors Royal Academy of Art, The Hague alumni People from Carmel Valley, California Military personnel from California 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American engineers 20th-century American male artists Dutch people of the Dutch East Indies 20th-century engravers