Marian Weston, Collection on Weldon Kees

Weldon Kees was born in Beatrice, Nebraska, on 24 February 1914 to John and Sarah Kees. After high school he attended Doane College and the University of Missouri - Columbia, though in 1935 he received his degree from the University of Nebraska. For a short period after he graduated from the University, he worked on the Federal Writers Project in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1937 he moved to Denver, Colorado, and worked as a librarian and the Director of the Bibliographic Center. From 1943 until 1949 Kees lived in New York City and in 1950 relocated to San Francisco. Kees is presumed to have died by suicide, having abandoned his car at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, on 18 July 1955.

Kees' creative energy led him in many directions including poetry, artwork, music, playwriting, photography, and filmmaking. Kees' first book of poetry, The Last Man, was published by The Colt Press in 1943. His second collection of poetry The Fall of Magicians was published in 1947 by Reynal and Hitchcock. In New York, Kees' creative energy shifted from poetry to painting. His abstract paintings were shown at two one-man shows at the Peridot Gallery in New York, owned by Lou Pollack. Kees earned money writing reviews for Time magazine, writing scripts for wartime newsreels, and writing art criticism for The Nation.