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PAUL WAGER 1949-2020
Artist and sculptor Paul Wager was born in Hartlepool in 1949 and attended Rosebank High School, Hartlepool where film director Ridley and Tony Scott were pupils. He then went on to study a BA in Fine Art at Sunderland Polytechnic and an MA at Newcastle Polytechnic.
Having taken a particular interest in the technical aspects of sculpture, he studied Fine Art Foundry Practice at The Royal College of Art and trained as a coded welder with McDermott Scotland before moving on to research British Steel Sculpture at Loughborough University.
His academic teaching career started at Cheltenham School of Art in 1975 where he met Rungwe Kingdon, Claude Koenig, John Humphreys and Julia Reeves, who went on to become his wife. Wager and Reeves had three sons, John Paul (b. 1984), Francis Conley (b. 1990) and Joseph Roman (b. 1993).
He took on further teaching positions at Winchester School of Art, Central St. Martins, Bristol Polytechnic and Loughborough University. The most prominent of his early, large fabricated steel pieces, are situated in the grounds of Loughborough University.
Wager’s most recent sculpture is cast in bronze at Pangolin Editions and incorporates Corten steel plinths which are an integral part of the work. He uses text in both paintings and sculptures. His paintings are large complex images and exist in a zone of ambiguity and contradiction; between macho and kitsch, erotic and ironic, politics and religion and are not hall marked with any single definable perspective.
“Paul Wager is my kind of artist – I have said this many times – I admire the way he ignores what is “in” – he doesn't do “cool” – he doesn't do “irony” but concentrates on subjects which resonate with his tough sense of morality and personal integrity. He is one of the few contemporary artists I know that has had the nerve to take on the huge challenge of dealing with a subject as loaded as the Great War and in my opinion has acquitted this task magnificently.”
— Professor Michael Sandle RA, President of the PSSA