Ken Tyler and Michael Crichton: a meeting of two artistic minds

Roy Lichtenstein. Still life with red jar. Colour screenprint, 1994.

Did you know that the late Michael Crichton, bestselling novelist and creator of hit television series ER, was also an avid art collector? Everything from Pop art to Picasso featured in his collection, much of which will go to auction next week at Christie’s New York.  

Crichton’s personal collection features some of the same prints and multiples held in the NGA’s Kenneth Tyler Printmaking Collection. It was in the LA workshops of Gemini GEL that Crichton first encountered master printer Ken Tyler at work in 1971. Crichton went on to meet Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Claes Oldenburg, Jasper Johns and many other of the prominent American artists who collaborated with Tyler. He became good friends with Johns in particular and wrote the catalogue for Johns’ 1977 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York.  

The 1976 film Reaching out featured Ken Tyler in discussion with Crichton in the west coast studios of Tyler Graphics Ltd. Tyler spoke of the respect and admiration he had for Crichton as a fellow creative spirit:  

Ken Tyler and Jasper Johns in the Gemini GEL workshop, Los Angeles, 1971. Photographer: Malcolm Lubliner.

 Michael Crichton as a writer has been very important to me, because what he does is he investigates, and through that process he’s been able to look at some of the people that I’ve worked with, and some of what I do… [T]his has developed into a very rewarding relationship for me.  Because the frustrations in my business run somewhat like a Wall Street curve.  And there are moments when you have to trust somebody, and it can’t be your artist, it can’t be your dealers, it can’t be your close friends, it can’t be your wife, it has to be somebody who is outside of your business area, but is in another area that is very creative also.