Jim Wagner of Taos, New Mexico has a style that is original and fresh. He has received excellent reviews from the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, etc. Wagners life is as extraordinary as his art. His biography presents the whole picture, both shadow and light. Sources include interviews with Wagner himself, family members, friends, etc. The result is a story that is intimate, universal and relevant. The book has 230 color plates and 48 black and white photographs. It also has a chronology, bibliography, registry of 2,343 pieces of Wagner's art and an index. Its 264 acid free pages measure 12' x 10' and are stitched and hard cover bound.

Jim Wagner of Taos, New Mexico, is among the most creative and accomplished artists in America. The style of his paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture is a fresh, thoroughly original and immediately recognizable blend of high art aesthetics and 'naive' spontaneity and power. His brightly painted furniture of the 1980s was so unique and captivating that it became synonymous with contemporary American folk art and launched an immensely popular style of interior design.

A principal subject of Wagner's art is Taos-its fabled landscape, funky adobe look, rich mix of cultures, and the animals that contribute so much to the flavor of life in this rural community. On another level, Wagner's work constitutes an eloquent diary that recounts his emotional response to life in Taos, his loves and losses, anguish over the death of his son and triumph over alcohol and drug abuse.

Jim Wagner, Taos traces the artist's work from the discovery of his artistic talent while in grade school in Monmouth, Oregon, through his formative years in Los Gatos, California, and finally to Taos, a place of spirit and creativity where he has lived for the past three decades. It examines his restless exploration of mediums and analyzes his signature accomplishments: the ecstatic "Talpa" landscape paintings of the 1960s; the preternatural "Mother Nature" constructions of the 1970s; the furniture of the '80s, with its playful jumble of stylized figures and symbols, and the masterworks of the '90s, that present a vivid and sometimes bizarre portrait of life as we approach the end of the millennium.

Interviews with family members and friends, fellow artists and ex-lovers reveal a man who is complex, compassionate, and unpredictable as his art, a man obsessed with making art and receiving love, a tender soul with a sunny disposition, yet a close acquaintance with violence.

The book is an ode to Jim Wagner's brilliant work, and an almost mythic tale about the redemptive powers of art.