Valton Tyler

Stop Playing and Get to Work

1970

In The New York Times Arts in America column, Edward M. Gomez wrote of Valton Tyler, "visionary seems the right word for describing his vivid, unusual and technically refined paintin...

In The New York Times Arts in America column, Edward M. Gomez wrote of Valton Tyler, "visionary seems the right word for describing his vivid, unusual and technically refined paintin...

In The New York Times Arts in America column, Edward M. Gomez wrote of Valton Tyler, "visionary seems the right word for describing his vivid, unusual and technically refined paintin...

In The New York Times Arts in America column, Edward M. Gomez writes of Valton Tyler, "visionary seems the right word for describing his vivid, unusual and technically refined painti...

In The New York Times Arts in America column, Edward M. Gomez wrote of Valton Tyler, "visionary seems the right word for describing his vivid, unusual and technically refined paintings, prints and drawings, whose style defies convenient labels. Abstract, surreal, cartoonish, sci-fi fantastic, metaphysical, apocalyptic-Baroque - all of these fit but also fall short of fully describing his art." (The Living Arts, June 13, 2000, p. B2) Valton Tyler was born in 1944 in Texas, where "the industrial world of oil refineries made a long-lasting impression on Valton as a very young child living in Texas City. He was three years old when the terrible explosion occurred there and can remember the terrifying confusion and 'the beautiful red sky and objects flying everywhere in the air.'" (Reynolds, p. 25) While growing up in Texas City, Valton's father worked in auto repair, and was known for his skill in mixing colors for paint jobs. After leaving Texas City, Valton made his way to Dallas, where he briefly enrolled at the Dallas Art Institute, but found it to be too social and commercial for his taste. After Valton's work was introduced to Donald Vogel (founder of Valley House Gallery), "Vogel arranged for Tyler to use the printmaking facilities in the art department of the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where the young artist essentially taught himself several demanding printmaking techniques. 'It was remarkable,' Vogel says. 'Not only did he learn complicated etching methods, but he was able to express himself powerfully in whatever medium he explored.' Vogel became the publisher of Tyler's prints. Among them, the artist made editions of some 50 different images whose sometimes stringy abstract forms and more solid, architecturally arresting elements became the precursors of his later, mature style." (Gomez, Raw Vision #35, p. 36) “World of Watermelons” is plate number 19, and is reproduced in "The First Fifty Prints: Valton Tyler" with text by Rebecca Reynolds, published for Valley House Gallery by Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, Texas, 1972. Of “World of Watermelons”, Tyler said “The title here does not represent my own associations with this print. Friends simply began referring to it as ‘the watermelon print...

In The New York Times Arts in America column, Edward M. Gomez wrote of Valton Tyler, "visionary seems the right word for describing his vivid, unusual and technically refined paintin...

Artist: Tom Marioni – American (1937- ) Title: Process Landscape 1998 Year: 1998 Medium: Color spit bite aquatint Image size: 15.75 x 10 inches. Paper size: 20 x 16 inches Framed size: 21.75 x 17.75 inches Signature: Signed, dated lower right Edition: 50. This one: 24/50. Published by: Crown Point Press Printed by: Paul Mullowney Condition: Excellent Frame: Framed in maple frame and plexiglas. Frame in fair to good condition with some small scratches. Tom Marioni was born in 1937 in Cincinnati, Ohio, attended the Cincinnati Art Academy, and in 1959 moved to San Francisco, where he still lives. His first sound work, One Second Sculpture, 1969, was celebrated in the 2005 Lyon Biennial as presaging the work of many artists today who use sound and duration as subjects. His first museum show was in 1970 at the Oakland Museum of California. Titled “The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art,” it was an early example of social art as a sculpture action. Over the years, Marioni was invited to repeat the work in various contexts around the world. In 1970 Marioni founded the Museum of Conceptual Art (MOCA), which he described at the time as “a large-scale social work of art.” Until the museum closed in 1984, he organized many groundbreaking shows, including “Sound Sculpture As” in 1970. MOCA has entered history as one of the first alternative art spaces. Marioni had one-person shows in several significant venues for early conceptual art, among them the Richard Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh in 1972 and Gallery Foksal in Warsaw in 1975. In 1977 he had a solo show, “The Sound of Flight,” at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. He has done installation/performance works at the Whitechapel Gallery in London (1972), the Institute of Contemporary Art in London (1973), the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1980), and the Folkwang Museum in Essen, Germany (1982), among other museums. He has produced sound works for radio stations KPFA in Berkeley and WDR in Cologne, Germany. In 1996 he organized The Art Orchestra and the group performed at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco. Marioni was included in “For Eyes and Ears” (1980) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, “Live to Air” (1982) at the Tate Gallery in London, and “From Sound to Image” (1985) at the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie in Germany. His work was shown in “Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object” (1998) at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and “The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia,” (2009) at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Drawing is central to Marioni’s art, and in 1999 he had a drawing retrospective, with a catalog, at the Mills College Art Museum in Oakland. In 2006 the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati presented a survey of his work and published a catalog. Marioni is the author of Beer, Art and Philosophy, 2003, a memoir, also Writings on Art 1969-1999, and Fabliaux Tom Marioni Fairy Tales. He was editor/designer of VISION magazine published by Crown Point Press, 1975-1981. Issues were titled “California,” “Eastern Europe,” “New York City,” “Word Of Mouth,” (phonograph records) and “Artist’s Photographs,” and published prints, since 1974. Tom Marioni received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1981 and three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts during the 1970s. His work is in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stadtische Kunsthalle in Mannheim, Germany, the Pompidou Center in Paris, and other museums. He is represented by the Anglim Gilbert Gallery...

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