Valton Tyler

Trapped

1970

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 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." (Reynolds, p. 25) 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) "Eagle’s Nest" is Plate Number 37, 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. In "The First Fifty Prints," Reynolds provides the following quote from the artist regarding this print: “The structure on the right is an architectural symbol for an eagle. It is also like a machine that is igniting the shape on the left. Below, the egg that is coming out of the chute is a child which will evolve into another architectural eagle...

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...

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