22 
MuseoMag   N°III 2024 
Portrait of Alexis Wagner 
ALEXIS WAGNER’S ARCHIVES 
Insights into the mind of an artist 
An archive is the documentary by-product of hu- 
man activity. Archives are an important source of 
information as they give us insights into past events. 
Preserving archives enriches our knowledge of the 
past and of the people and events that shaped our 
present. 
In the case of the Lëtzebuerger Konschtarchiv, 
artists’ estates are the product of artists’ creations 
and associated activities, such as exhibitions, sales 
and source material, amongst others. When these 
archives enter our collection, it’s important to un- 
derstand the context in which the artists worked 
and created or collected those documents. Applying 
the so-called ‘provenance principle’, meaning pre- 
serving the artist’s initial organisation of their docu- 
ments, gives us crucial information on and valuable 
insight into the artist’s work and daily life. 
A COLLECTION OF 215 NOTEBOOKS 
In 2023, the Lëtzebuerger Konschtarchiv received 
the estate of Alexis Wagner (1929-1989), a Luxem- 
bourg painter. This archive contains a lot of docu- 
ments relating to the artist’s own research, as well 
as exhibition documents, sketches, photographs, 
correspondence and newspaper articles.   
The largest part of the estate is a collection of 215 
P-WAGA01-202301-02.3.2.1 
Alexis 
Wagner 
Et 
Son 
Entourage. 
[without date]