Charles "Chappie" Wagner, born and raised in New Jersey, attended public schools in Union and graduated with a BA in architecture, Magna Cum Laude, from Princeton University in 1952.  A veteran of World War II, he attended Davis & Elkins College prior to his tenure at Princeton.  He had a long career as a practicing architect in New Jersey and directed campus physical planning and taught landscape architecture at West Virginia University.  He held similar positions at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and George Mason University in Fairfax Virginia, where he retired in 1989.

Since retirement, Chappie has concentrated his artistic talents on sketching domestic and foreign historic sites, including the montage presented to Dr. Dorothy MacConkey at retirement.  He also designed the cover montages for the City of Fairfax History, A City Traveling Through Time, and has been commissioned for several other like projects in Virginia, West Virginia and New York.  His work has been displayed at the North Shore Gallery in Long Island, the Fairfax Museum, the Allegheny Visions Gallery at Talbott Glass Company and in local gift shops.

Some of the artist's work