Richard Wagener

Richard Wagener (born 1944) is a notable American wood engraver known for his prints and fine press books. His work has been collected by over seventy-five public institutions. One of his books was included in Artist books in the Modern Era, 1870 -2000 at the Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.^[1] Victoria Dailey has called Wagener the first California artist since Paul Landacre to achieve prominence in the art of wood engraving.^[2]

Works

Wagener’s early engravings juxtaposed realistic elements against a field of abstract imagery, frequently incorporating letterforms. In 1989 he met Peter Koch, fine press printer, Berkeley. California. Their collaboration resulted in the publication of Zebra Noise with a Flatted Seventh, Peter Koch, Printers, 1998.^[3] Zebra Noise included 26 wood engravings of a zoological alphabet as well as a text by Wagener that is evocative of the American West. Simon Brett, one of the most articulate observers of wood engraving, wrote that “No one else I know of is making such avant-garde grand opera in wood-engraved prints.”^[4] Mark Dimunation, Head of Special Collections at the Library of Congress, referred to the book as a “work of maturity and grace.”^[5]

In 2003, Wagener contributed abstract color wood engravings to accompany The Fragments of Parmenides,^[6] Editions Koch, Berkeley. This book, some ten years in the making, features a new translation of the Parmenides fragments by Robert Bringhurst, Canadian poet, typographer and author, and uses two new Greek typefaces commissioned for this project by Peter Koch. The first typeface was designed by Christopher Stinehour in a digital format. The second typeface was cut in steel and cast in metal by Dan Carr at the Golgonooza Typefoundry in Ashuelot, New Hampshire.

In 2006, Wagener established the imprint Mixolydian Editions for his own fine press projects. The first publication was Cracked Sidewalks,^[7] vignettes and prose poems about growing up in Los Angeles. The second book was Mountains & Religion,^[8] twenty engravings based on imagery from a journey to Nepal and Tibet in 1995, published in 2011. His print Kathmandu Alley, from Mountains and Religion, is a prime example of his meticulous style of wood-engraving.^[9]

The Book Club of California published California in Relief,^[10] 2009, thirty wood engravings by Wagener with a foreword by Victoria Dailey. Jan Elsted noted: “Wagener’s essential engravings of an outer landscape remind us of the echo within ourselves of an interior one, and we respond with grateful recognition.”^[11]

In 2013 Wagener again collaborated with Peter Koch to create a companion book, The Sierra Nevada Suite: Thirty-One Wood Engravings, published by the Book Club of California.^[12] This book continued Wagener’s observations of the sometimes stark and austere details of California’s landscape and featured two fold-out panoramic engravings of Yosemite. It received a Juror’s Choice award at the Fine Press show in Oxford, England.

At the 2013 Codex Book Fair and Symposium held at the Craneway Pavilion, Richmond, California, Wagener met the New Zealand poet Alan Loney. After seeing Wagener’s new suite of prints based on the idea of weaving, Loney agreed to write a poetic response. The results of this project, "Loom", was published collaboratively by Nawakum Press, Santa Rosa, California and Mixolydian Editions. The text was printed by Patrick Reagh of Sebastopol, California, and the binding was done by Craig Jensen at Booklab II, San Marcos, Texas.

Wagener has also produced a number of engraved bookplates that have been collected internationally. He designed the ex-libris logo for the XXVII FISAE Congress held in Boston, 2000. His bookplates have been featured in Print Magazine; Contemporary Ex-Libris Artists, article by James Keenan, published in Portugal, 2003;^[13] California Bookplates by Robert Dickover, published by the Book Club of California, 2006;^[14] and Three Centuries of the American Bookplate by James Goode, the catalog accompanying a show of bookplates at the University of Virginia in 2010.^[15]

Wagener has also made a number of large scale wood-cut interpretations of his wood engravings published by Magnolia Editions, Oakland, California.^[16]

For over twenty years Wagener has been teaching wood engraving at the KALA Institute in Berkeley.

Education

He studied Biology at the University of San Diego and earned an MFA in painting from Art Center School, Los Angeles (now Pasadena), California.

Notable writings

His interview of artist Robert Motherwell, conducted in 1974, was first published in a catalog for an exhibition Robert Motherwell in California Collections at the Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, and later included in The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell.^[17]

Wagener wrote an essay for Carving the Elements, a companion to The Fragments of Parmenides, discussing the development of his engravings to illuminate the text.^[6][18]

References

External links

• www.richardwagener.com
• http://www.bccbooks.org/store/products/category/new-publications/
• http://www.magnoliaeditions.com/artists/richard-wagener/
• http://www.peterkochprinters.com/portfolio3.php?show=71
• http://www.nawakumpress.com/books_loom.html