Valton Tyler
Fossil Ship
1971

Name: Fossil Ship
Brand: Valton Tyler
Rating: 5 (14 reviews)

Price Upon Request

About the Item

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, page 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, page 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, page 36) "Fossil Ship" is Plate Number 42, 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 recounts Valton Tyler's description of this image: "'The Fossil Ship' is similar and related to 'Journey.' It concerns travel. The ship is a fossil of an image that happened maybe 100 billion years ago, but time means to me, for instance, throwing the mind so far away that the spectator wouldn't think of himself as involved. It's like a new world or a search for one. These people, or whatever they were, were stranded there. The tree stump that I placed there is like an old lady who, with a similar shape, was content with life, and therefore she knew she had very few years to live. Through all this waiting to die, she merely grew a little plant there, and that is what the design grew out of. Much of it is not the actual ship. Much of the design concerned the tools that they had. They just built on to it and tried to survive as long as they could. The light beams that were shining were brittle. You could just break them off because everything was frozen. It is just a dreary feeling of having been traveling but lost. You wonder about it and feel a closeness to it. All is frozen still and preserved. It deals with the feeling of loneliness." (Reynolds, page 120) Media: aquatint and line etching on BFK Rives rag paper Paper size: 27 x 37 1/2 inches Edition: 5 Artists Proofs Imp. 50 Signed Prints Imp. Bibliography: Edward M. Gomez, "Futuristic Forms Frolic Under Eerie Texan Skies," The New York Times, June 13, 2000, page B2. Edward M. Gomez, "Valton Tyler's Techno-Organic Landscapes," Raw Vision 35, Summer 2001, pages 34-39. Rebecca Reynolds, "The First Fifty Prints: Valton Tyler," published for Valley House Gallery by Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, Texas, 1972.

Creator:
Valton Tyler (1944, American)
Creation Year:
1971
Dimensions:
Height: 22.75 in (57.79 cm)Width: 33.5 in (85.09 cm)
Medium:
Rag Paper,Etching,Aquatint
Movement & Style:
Outsider Art
Period:
1970-1979
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Dallas, TX
Reference Number:
Seller: VT-42-011stDibs: LU2572841153

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