International prints, drawings and illustrated books
David Hockney The master printer of Los Angeles 1973 colour lithograph and screenprint more detail
As a printmaker and publisher I can only be as successful as the artists I work with and the art we create together... Kenneth Tyler was speaking of working with the artist David Hockney, but his comments are applicable to that group of talented artists who were put into the creative environment of the various Tyler print workshops from the 1960s to 2001, working with Tyler and his team. For Tyler, collaboration engaged heart and mind, introducing innovation, response, reaction — all necessary for creativity. The printer had to be a chameleon, changing his colour to suit the artist and what the artist might need. It also required a degree of selflessness by the printer and workshop staff, where the artist had to come first. In an observation about Tyler’s role the artist Frank Stella noted that: He is more driven than the artists he works with, he won’t go home before you do, he’s always there – and in the end he’s always there for you.2 This website is devoted to the work of artists who collaborated with Kenneth Tyler at Gemini Ltd (1965) and Gemini GEL (1966-1973) in Los Angeles, California, Tyler Workshop Ltd (1974) and Tyler Graphics Ltd (1975) at Bedford and Mount Kisco (1987), New York.
Jane Kinsman 1Ken Tyler ‘Layers of space and time: Hockney’s Moving Focus’ in Contemporary Master Prints from the Lilja Collection (Vaduz, Liechtenstein: The Lilja Art Fund Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions 1995) p.125. |