Kenneth Tyler (b. 1931) played a leading role in the Print Renaissance that swept through the American art world starting in the late 1950s. He studied printmaking at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, was accorded distinction as a Master Printer, and in 1965 established Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited), a fine print publishing house based in Los Angeles. Here, Tyler expanded the spectrum of print expression through a dynamic infusion of new materials and new techniques, and Gemini G.E.L. quickly attracted a large number of the up-and-coming young artists of the day. Tyler’s workshop went on to become a principal leader of the new Print Renaissance movement, but in 1974 Tyler left Gemini G.E.L. and founded a new print workshop, Tyler Graphics Ltd., in New York State.
        Tyler Graphics provided an environment enabling artistic expression of remarkable diversity through the combined use of artisanal craftsmanship and advanced mechanical technologies, harnessing everything from traditional techniques to complex mixed-media formats and producing everything from small hand-size prints to enormous wall-size creations. The workshop transformed printmaking and publishing into projects on grand scale, and it quickly attracted the participation of many of America’s foremost contemporary artists: Helen Frankenthaler, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, James Rosenquist, David Salle and Frank Stella among them. Working in collaboration with these and other affiliated artists, Tyler Graphics generated a substantial portfolio of historically significant print works, until the studio closed its doors in 2001.
        This exhibition will feature especially renowned masterpieces gleaned from the Tyler Graphics Archive Collection at CCGA. On display together for the first time at CCGA will be James Rosenquist’s “Time Dust” and Frank Stella’s “The Fountain,” two enormous prints respectively exceeding 10m and 7m in width. We hope the exhibition, bringing together a large number of works that revolutionized the art of printmaking, will provide visitors an opportunity to understand and appreciate the significant contribution made by Tyler Graphics.