Roger Wagner

Dates: b.1957

Gender: Male

Nationality: British

Roger Wagner read English at Lincoln College Oxford before studying under Peter Greenham at the Royal Academy School of Art. His paintings have been shown in many solo and group exhibitions and form part of the Natwest Collection, The Ashmolean Museum Oxford and The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Read more…

Biography:

Roger Wagner read English at Lincoln College Oxford before studying under Peter Greenham at the Royal Academy School of Art. His paintings have been shown in many solo and group exhibitions and form part of the Natwest Collection, The Ashmolean Museum Oxford and The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Roger Wagner read English at Lincoln College Oxford before studying under Peter Greenham at the Royal Academy School of Art. His paintings have been shown in many solo and group exhibitions and form part of the Natwest Collection, The Ashmolean Museum Oxford and The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

He has described his work as falling into three categories, ‘the purely visual, those where the visual and the literary intersect, and the purely literary.’ The extensive scope of Wagner’s ambitions are demonstrated in his long term project to translate, illustrate and publish all 150 psalms in a series of books titled The Book of Praises. This first part of this interdisciplinary project was published in 1994 and was illustrated with woodcuts.  The second part was published early in 2010 and contains not only woodcuts but also colour prints of his paintings. An exhibition was held at the Ashmolean museum to display the original paintings alongside some of his larger works.

Part of what makes Wagner’s work so distinctive is the way in which he links modern and biblical images. In his most famous work, Menorah, Wagner depicts the Didcot power station as the menorah with a crucifixion taking place in the foreground. Likewise in his 1989 work, The Burning Furnace traditionally styled angels are situated within industrial Victorian iron works. It is perhaps these juxtapositions that led Peter Levi to suggest of his paintings, 'In some ways they are very old fashioned indeed, but in the most important way modern. There is something disturbing and exciting even in his harshest and most reserved work. He has the power to create a myth.'