Wallace E. Dawes; Historian and Purveyor of Fine Paper

Wallace “Wally” E. Dawes, purveyor, historian and exhibitor of fine papers, has died. He was 71.

Dawes, who with his wife, RoseMarie, operated the Paper Mill and later the Paper Source in downtown Los Angeles, died Sept. 3 in Los Angeles of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Affectionately called “Mr. Paper” by his artist and archivist customers, Dawes became interested in paper after his discharge from the Navy in the early 1950s. He invested $2,000 in a paper distribution company in New York, which sold high quality rag paper to insurance companies and law firms.

Although the business was successful, Dawes became bored and started dealing additionally in specialty and antique paper. He also began studying the history of creating paper. By the 1960s, he was in demand as a speaker for industry groups, taught classes at Columbia and New York universities, and hosted a PBS television program called “The World of Paper.”

He spun tales about paper that sounded like adventure stories--beginning with precursors such as Mesoamerican amatl and Egyptian papyrus to the development of modern paper in China during the Han Dynasty around AD 105. Japanese craftsmen, he went on, had learned the secret by the 8th century, and the technique spread to the West in 751 when troops of Genghis Khan were captured by Muslim soldiers.

Dawes moved to Santa Barbara in 1972 and soon after moved to Los Angeles, where he established his specialty paper company in the downtown loft district housing artists’ studios. Moving the Paper Source to 1506 W. 12th St. in 1984, he added a paper museum to educate schoolchildren and others about the material that so intrigued him. He also added an art gallery to display examples of items made from paper.

In addition to supplying paper to such artists as David Hockney and Edward Ruscha, Dawes worked as an archivist, helping preserve valuable records--such as the papers of legendary Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille.

“People just don’t realize that if paper is properly cared for, it is more permanent than marble statues,” he told The Times in 1986.

Born in Grafton, Mass., Dawes had no formal education, but never stopped learning about paper. Every trip he made furthered his study--in Italy he sought out a Sicilian who made papyrus, in Japan he located a village where rice paper is made in the ancient way of beating fibers, and in England he found a mill with such pure water that it cornered the market on laboratory paper.

“The most valuable things I’ve learned about papers, I haven’t gotten from books but in feedback from artists,” Dawes told The Times. “In the end, the only people who can make a final judgment about a paper is the people who use it.”

Dawes created a paper he called Westwinds that could be used to make serigraphs without shrinking in the low humidity caused by dry Santa Ana winds.

In addition to his wife, Dawes is survived by two daughters, Jane Dawes Grandi and Nancy Dawes Janczys, a brother, Melvin, and four sisters, Betty Legg, Carol Legere, Lillian Bradley and Marion Peters, and one grandson.

Mrs. Dawes said two memorial services are planned, one at 2 p.m. Sunday in her Los Angeles home, and another Oct. 10 in New York.

The family has asked that memorial donations be made to the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Assn., 5624 Walnut Ridge Drive, Agoura Hills, CA 91301.