Valton Tyler

Do Not Touch

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 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) “Height...

This artwork titled "Sub Culture" c1972 is an original color lithograph on wove paper by noted New Orleans artist Caroline Spellman Wogan Durieux, 1896-1989. It is hand signed, titled, dated and numbered 5/10 in pencil by the artist. The image size is 17.75 x 13 inches, sheet size is 19.85 x 15 inches. It is in excellent condition, some hanging tape from previous framing remaining on the back. About the artist: As a Southern female satirist, Caroline Spellman Wogan Durieux was a rare phenomenon in the early twentieth century. Today, she is highly regarded for her stinging lithographs that touch on human foibles as well as some of the important issues of her day. Born to a family of Creole descent in New Orleans, young Caroline was precocious; she began drawing at age four and completed a portfolio of watercolors depicting her city by the time she was twelve. She took lessons from Mary Butler, a member of the art faculty at Sophie Newcomb College, and, beginning in 1912, matriculated at the school full-time, where her instructors included Ellsworth Woodward, chair of the art department. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in design in 1916 and one in education in 1917. Awarded a scholarship by the New Orleans Art Association, Durieux pursued further coursework at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1918 to 1920. Years later, she was encouraged to try lithography by Carl Zigrosser, an expert curator of prints at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, who became her mentor. With her husband Pierre Durieux—an importer of Latin American goods and later the chief representative of General Motors for South America—Caroline Durieux spent time in Cuba during the early 1920s. The couple moved in 1926 to Mexico City, where she met the great muralist Diego Rivera and became involved in the local art community. Following a short interval in New York City, Durieux went back to Mexico in 1931 and enrolled at the Academy of San Carlos (now the National University of Mexico) to study lithography. She returned to New Orleans seven years later and was hired to teach at her alma mater, Newcomb College, from 1938 to 1943. Starting in 1939, Durieux served as the director of Louisiana’s Works Progress Administration program, and her division was the only one in the state not to practice racial discrimination. This was a matter she felt strongly about, stating: “I had a feeling that an artist is an artist and it doesn’t make any difference what color he or she is.” From 1943 until her retirement in 1964, Durieux was a member of the faculty at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Durieux’s forte was lithography, a technique popular in the mid-nineteenth century and long associated with social commentary, and her prints proved no exception. Her work in the 1930s and 1940s coincided with a rise in art that dealt with poverty, racism, and totalitarianism. She often presented stereotyped social climbers...

edition 1/5 BARBARA KUEBEL is a Daphne, AL-based artist who uses oil and pencil for her works on paper and on canvas. She was born and raised in Austria and earned two art degrees f...