Valton Tyler was born in Texas City, Texas in 1944. Shortly after Valton’s third birthday, a freighter in the port, loaded with more than 2,000 tons of ammonium nitrate (fertilizer), ignited and exploded, setting off massive fires as other ships, a nearby chemical plant and the refinery went up in flames. The blast shattered windows as far away as Houston and was felt 100 miles to the northeast, in Louisiana. “I was an infant but I remember it very well,” Tyler says of what became known as the Texas City Disaster, the worst industrial incident of its kind in U.S. history.

Valton’s Father was a mechanic with a severe alcoholic temper and his Mother, extremely overprotective. Even in adulthood, Valton was scared of the dark and chose to obsessively work in the night so that he could sleep during the day.

Valton dropped out of high school, but later got his diploma when he moved to Dallas with his Mother. Valton’s Brother studied architectural drafting and this inspired Valton to enroll in Commercial art school. His interest did not last and he rarely attended school, but started to discover the modern art section at the public library. He started drawing with a pensive intent.

His early work involved religion and the beginnings of his fantastical mechanical imagery that is most representative of his work.
His early years of the oil field machinery, architecture interest, and his own surrealist approach to life melds to make up Valton’s unique style.

Valton and his work has never really fit any pigeon hole of art. Modern, surreal, somewhat trained but definitely an outsider in his obsessive intent.
Many Dallas folks were supporters and patrons throughout his life; and over the years his work was exhibited at various New York galleries, including Phyllis Kind’s gallery in the 1990’s.
Valton passed at 2017, but just prior to his passing he saw the completion a documentary of his work by Edward Gomez and saw his work accepted into the Amon Carter Museum of Art collection.