Machupuchare is a woodengraving created in 2010 by American artist, Richard Wagener. It is pencil signed, dated, and editioned 16/18. Machupuchare was included in Mountains & Religion, published by Mixolydian Editions in 2011. It was printed by the artist on antique-white Zerkall wove paper and the image measures 4 x 3-1/2 inches.
Machupuchare, a mountain in the Himalayas range, is located in north central Nepal in the Annapurna massif. Its name means "fish tail" in Nepalese due to a curving ridge that ascends sharply into a double-peaked summit that in some profiles appears forked much like a fish tail. Though its peak is lower than its neighbors, its geographic isolation makes it seem taller and the stunning prominence of its vertical relief is inescapable from any angle or distance. Machupuchare has yet to be officially summited due to the Nepali government's refusal to issue climbing permits, as ordered under then-King Mahendra in the 1950s on the basis of a sacred designation.
Richard Wagener was born in Texicana, Arkansas in 1944. He grew up in southern California, spending time with his grandfather in remote parts of the desert and up in the Sierra mountain range. Early art classes introduced him to Maynard Dixon and Edgar Payne and his after-school activities included selling the evening newspapers at the Disney studios, where he met many of the illustrators and animators. Wagener studied biology at the University of San Diego and earned an M.F.A. in painting from Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.
In 2006, Wagener established the imprint Mixolydian Editions for his own fine press projects. He collaborated with David Pascoe of Nawakum Press, Santa Rosa, California, co-publishing three fine press books, one of which, Loom, earned the 2016 Carl Hertzog Award for Excellence in Book Design. Wagener has also produced a number of engraved bookplates that have been collected internationally. He designed the logo for the XXVII FISAE Congress held in Boston in 2000. His bookplates have been featured in Print Magazine; “Contemporary Ex-Libris Artists,” an article by James Keenan, that was published in Portugal in 2003; California Bookplates by Robert Dickover, published by the Book Club of California in 2006; and Three Centuries of the American Bookplate by James Goode, the catalog accompanying a show of bookplates at the University of Virginia from 2010.
A notable American wood engraver, Wagener's works are held in over 100 public collections in the United States and England. He was awarded the Oscar Lewis Award for contributions to the book arts.
