Pachystachys lutea (Shrimp Plant)

Richard Wagener

Pachystachys lutea, known as the golden shrimp plant or lollipop plant, is a tropical, soft-stemmed evergreen shrub between 0.5 and 2.5 meters tall, native to Peru. The zygomorphic, long-throated, short-lived white flowers emerge sequentially from overlapping bright yellow bracts on racemes that are produced throughout the warm months. (wikipedia). The plant grows in the U.S. in coastal California and Southern Arizona. This image will be included in Wagener's forthcoming book "From Here and There"

Richard Wagener was born in Texicana, Arkansas in 1944. He 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.