Rolf Klep
​artist, author, founder

When Rolf Klep was a little boy he sketched scenes in Portland, where he was born, and in Astoria, where he moved with his parents in 1912 when he was 8.
His grandfather was a master of sailing ships and when young Klep came to Astoria the lore of the past and the busy harbor before him provided subjects for his canvas. He became a widely known illustrator whose work appeared
in scores of magazines and books.

​Klep left Astoria for the University of Oregon in 1922, dropped out for a time, then went back and got his degree in 1927.  He and his wife, Alice, were married in 1929 and went to Chicago where he planned to enroll in the Chicago Institute of Art. Instead he got a job in an advertising art studio and the course of his career was set. He went to New York as a freelance illustrator and stayed there for nearly 30 years. Upon his return to Astoria, his chief interest became
​the Columbia River Maritime Museum.

Mapping the Pacific Coast

Promising unimaginable possibilities of wealth and power, yet whisper-thin, these maps were coveted secrets of the world’s grandest empires. They are now a record of greed, hunger, faith and hope. The European Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment were periods of unprecedented expansion of human knowledge. Few gains were greater than in the understanding of the geography of the world.  The Pacific Coast was the last region to be explored, proving to be full of great hardship and promise. These maps illustrate 260 years of discovery; the earliest is 460 years old. The maps are the gift of Henry and Holly Wendt. Welcome to terra incognito – land unknown.