Reiner Wagner

* 1942 Hildesheim

Selected Works

Walchensee, Dawn
2023
Walchensee, Einsiedel, in the morning
2024
Lake Starnberg, in the evening
2024
On the east bank
2021
Path on the east bank
2018
Evening light
2024
Stadel and path
2024
Two barns
2024
Stadel form Wald
2024
Two barns near Habach
2024
Linsberg, Pischetsried
2020
Morning light
2024
Summer clouds
2024
Evening light
2020
Still life with paint cans
2024
Three tins of paint
2024
Bend in the road
2022
Bend in the road
2024
Evenings by the sea
2019
By the sea II
2024
View of the sea from the terrace II
2023
By the sea I
2024
First sunlight, Corsica
2022
Chapel in Corsica, Paomina
2024
Nature study by the sea III
2019
Omigna
2019
Lemon still life II
2024
Winter landscape
1999
Winter landscape near Weidwies
2020
Winter landscape (Zwergern)
2017
Lemon talk
2022
Lemon still life I
2024

Vita

1942
was born on 28 February in Hildesheim, the son of the musician Viktor Wagner.
1948 - 1960
School years in Hildesheim and at boarding school in Holzminden
1957
First stay in Corsica. Wagner discovers his passion for painting
1961 - 1964
Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich under Prof Hermann Kasper and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin under Prof Heinz Trökes
1965
Marriage and move to Corsica
1969
Relocation to the Bavarian Alpine foothills
1972 - 1977
Friendly connection to the Günther Franke Gallery, Munich
1978 - 2001
Supervision by Galerie Gunzenhauser, Munich
seit 1989
Collaboration with Galerie Koch, Hanover.
1996
Catalogue raisonné of paintings from 1965 to 1995 by Galerie Gunzenhauser, Munich
2006
Bavarian State Bank, Munich: Retrospective.

Awards

Solo exhibitions (selection)

1972
Galerie Günther Franke, München,
1978
Galerie Gunzenhauser, München,
1979
Museum Weilheim, Weilheim, Germany
1980
Rathaus Tutzing, Tutzing, Germany
1981
Kurgästehaus Murnau, Murnau, Germany
1981
Museum Weilheim, Weilheim, Germany
1981
Galerie Weihs, Starnberg, Germany
1982
Galerie Gunzenhauser, München, Germany
1982
Galerie am Schloßpavillon, Ismaning, Germany
1983
Galerie Utermann, Dortmund, Germany
1984
Galerie Redmann, Berlin, Germany
1985
Galerie Gunzenhauser, München, Germany
1988
Galerie Gunzenhauser, München, Germany
1989
Galerie Koch, Hannover, Germany
1990
Stadtmuseum Schongau, Schongau, Germany
1992
Museum Weilheim, Weilheim, Germany
1994
Stadtmuseum Schongau, Schongau, Germany
1994
Galerie Gunzenhauser, München, Germany
1995
Galerie Koch, Hannover, Germany
1996
Kunstforum Oberes Allgäu, Hindelang, Germany
1996
Galerie Gottschick, Tübingen, Germany
1999
Galerie Gunzenhauser, Münchern, Germany
2000
Galerie Gunzenhauser, München, Germany
2001
Museum Weilheim, Weilheim, Germany
2001
Galerie der Kreissparkasse Starnberg, Starnberg, Germany
2002
Galerie Paul Sties, Kronberg, Germany
2002
Galerie Koch, Hannover, Germany
2003
Galerie Koch-Westenhoff, Lübeck, Germany
2003
Orangeriesaal im Schloss Nymphenburg, München, Germany
2003
Galerie der Bildungsstätte des bayerischen Bauernverbandes, Herrsching, Germany
2004
Galerie Paul Sties, Kronberg, Germany
2004
Mairie d'Ota (Rathaus von Ota), Ota (Korsika), France
2004
Galerie Kurhaus Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
2005
Galerie Vömel, Düsseldorf, Germany
2006
Galerie der Bayerischen Landesbank (BayernLB), München, Germany
2007
Galerie Koch, Hannover, Germany
2007
Galerie Koch-Westenhoff, Lübeck, Germany
2007
Galerie Peerlings, Krefeld, Germany
2008
Galerie Benzenberg, Tutzing, Germany
2008
Galerie der Bildungsstätte des bayerischen Bauernverbandes, Herrsching, Germany
2009
Galerie Vömel, Düsseldorf, Germany
2009
Kunsthaus Binhold, Köln, Germany
2010
Seeresidenz Alte Post, Seeshaupt, Germany
2010
Galerie Koch-Westenhoff, Lübeck, Germany
2012
Galerie Koch, Hannover, Germany
2012
Galerie am Rathaus, Tützing, Germany
2012
Galerie Binhold, Köln, Germany
2012
"Reiner Wagner, Zwischen See und Meer, Ölbilder und Aquarelle", Seeresidenz Alte Post, Seeshaupt, Germany
2013
Galerie Koch-Westenhoff, Lübeck,
2013
Galerie des Marktes, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
2014
Galerie Vömel, Düsseldorf,
2015
Thoma Galerie, Starnberg, Germany
2015
Kunsthaus Binold, Köln, Germany
2015
Schloss Sulzburg, Germany
2017
"Reiner Wagner: Ferne und Nähe", Galerie Koch, Hannover,
2018
Thoma Galerie, Starnberg, Germany
2019
"Reiner Wagner: Geheimnis der Natur", Galerie Koch, Hannover, Germany
2019
Galerie in der Poststelle Hirschbühl, Scharzenberg, Austria
2020
"Reiner Wagner", Thoma Galerie, Starnberg, Germany
2020
"Reiner Wagner: Neue Arbeiten", Seeresidenz Alte Post, Seeshaupt, Germany

Group exhibitions (selection)

1986
Haus der Kunst, München, Germany
2014
"Rot. Von farblichen Akzenten zur Monochromie I", Galerie Koch, Hannover (K), Germany
2015
"60 Jahre Galerie Koch", Hannover (K), Germany
2016
"Blau. Von Farblichen Akzenten zur Monochromie II", Galerie Koch, Hannover,
2018
"Vom Stadel zum Wolkenkratzer. Architekturdarstellungen", Galerie Koch, Hannover, Germany
2019
"Gelb. Von farblichen Akzenten zur Monochromie III", Galerie Koch, Hannover, Germany
2020
"65 Jahre Galerie Koch", Galerie Koch, Hannover, Germany
2020
"Unter freiem Himmel: Landschaftsdarstellungen", Galerie Koch, Hannover, Germany
2021
"Grün: Von farblichen Akzenten zur Monochromie IV", Galerie Koch, Hannover, Germany

Collections

About the artist

Reiner Wagner was born in Hildesheim in 1942. Coming from a family of musicians, he learnt to play the violin as a child, then the piano and sang in a boys' choir. In 1957, during a holiday on the island of Corsica, he discovered his love of painting. After finishing school, Wagner finally decided against a career as a musician and studied from 1961 to 1964, first at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich (under Hermann Kasper) and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. In 1965, Wagner moved to Corsica with his wife Ingrid, where he created his first landscape paintings of the Mediterranean island. After the birth of their first son, Wagner first moved to Munich, then to Lake Starnberg when their second son was born. A friendly relationship developed with Galerie Günther Franke, Munich, which represented the artist from 1972-1977, with Galerie Gunzenhauser, Munich, which exhibited Wagner from 1978-2001 and looked after his work (1996 catalogue raisonné, 1965-1995), and then from 1989 with Galerie Koch in Hanover. Wagner's first museum exhibition took place in 1979 at the Weilheim City Museum (also 1981, 1992, 2002), followed by exhibitions at the Schongau City Museum (1990, 1994). To this day, Wagner regularly shows his works at the Galerie Koch in Hanover. - Wagner's work includes oil paintings, watercolours and woodcuts of landscapes and still lifes. His landscapes always reflect his living environment, on the one hand the Bavarian Alpine foothills from Lake Starnberg southwards towards the towns of Iffeldorf, Kochel, Murnau with their lakes, moors and the Bavarian Alps, from the Walchensee mountains and Walchensee via Krün, Wallgau to the Karwendel mountains, and on the other hand the western Corsican, Mediterranean mountain landscape with the sea, which the painter still visits in the summer months. Wagner's landscapes, although orientated towards visible reality, are by no means vedute, but reduce the nature seen to its essential forms, reflecting its atmospheric mood as well as the painter's own experience, his dialogue with nature. Wagner's landscapes often consist of clearly separated landscape zones, sometimes layered parallel to one another in the painting. The colour palette is reduced to a few colours, even concentrating on just one colour in various shades of light and dark (e.g. Walchensee pictures). The renunciation of details, the tendency to combine diversity into a few large areas and the reduction of the richness of colour simplify and abstract the natural model, allowing the eye to linger. Impressions such as seriousness, calm, inwardness, loneliness, emptiness, but also cheerfulness and clarity are part of his landscape paintings.
Although people are absent from Reiner Wagner's landscapes, he does not show unspoilt nature. Paths, barns, farmsteads and boathouses, which the artist reduces to their basic forms, bear witness to the presence of man. With their red, orange-red, blue or violet colouring, the roofs of the barns often form a clear colour accent in the composition, sometimes complementing the green of the flora or the blue of the sky and the mountains; a creative intervention in the topographically given, which underlines the fact that Wagner's landscape paintings are not an image of what he has seen, but a mental processing of what he has seen. This also characterises Wagner's still lifes, which show objects from his immediate living and working environment: Cups, bowls and plates, fruit, individual flowers in often glass vessels as well as the painter's working materials, paint tubes, chalks, paint tins and brushes. The creative impulse is usually triggered by a random constellation of these objects, but his still lifes are also strictly composed and characterised by the same asceticism as his landscape paintings. Only a few objects occupy the compositions; they are displayed in an intimate, spaceless manner. The viewer's gaze can rest entirely on the individual objects; their presentation surfaces and the background are usually almost monochrome. The outlines of the slightly abstractly depicted objects are firm and clearly contoured, their colours bright, detached from the original colour of the object and set in relation to the colour tones of the surface and background. It is clear that Wagner does not strive for mimesis in his still lifes either, but instead achieves a different, new creation by mentally processing what he has seen. It is not without reason that a conversation with Reiner Wagner in 2006 was introduced with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's aphorism: "Art: another nature, also mysterious, but more comprehensible; for it springs from the mind."

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