He was the son of the well-known Swedish portrait and figure painter Arvid Fougstedt and Gerda Wessel. After graduating in 1936, Wessel-Fougstedt studied archeology and art history at Stockholm University . He started art studies at the Technical School in Stockholm in 1938 under Aron Sandberg, mainly concentrating on sculpting. In 1939 he studied figure painting under Edvin Ollers and the following spring, enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. There he studied drawing under Aksel Jørgensen but the outbreak of war put an end to his education. He made study trips to Switzerland, France and Belgium in 1947.

He exhibited in the Swedish open exhibitions from the 1930s, showing at the Stockholm Artists Exhibition, the National Museum's Young cartoonists exhibition at the Galerie Moderne. The latter was a leading commercial gallery in Stockholm and gave Wessel-Fougstedt his first solo show in 1949. His work is represented by the Swedish National Museum, the Modern Museum in Stockholm, the Gothenburg Art Museum, the Vänersborg Museum and the Kalmar Art Museum.