Six Rainbow Trains: Elevated

William Richard Crutchfield

"Six Rainbow Trains: Elevated" is from a suite of six color screenprints done by Crutchfield in London. He combined one of his great fascinations, the locomotive engine with rainbows. This image uses the rainbow motif in the wheels of this fantastic engine, stacked seven high. On top of the attached small coal car is an elevator that stops at each engine, a play on the title "Elevated."

William Richard Crutchfield was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on January 21, 1932. Crutchfield studied at Herron School of Art at Indiana University in Indianapolis, receiving his Bachelor of Fine Art degree in 1956. He received his Master of Fine Art degree in 1960 from Tulane University in New Orleans. He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 1961, which allowed him to study at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg, Germany.

Crutchfield taught advanced drawing at the Herron School of Art from 1962 to 1965 and taught at the Minneapolis College of Art between 1965 and 1967. He moved to California in 1967, where he worked on a series of lithographs at Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles. In 1970, Crutchfield was artist-in-residence in Hannover, West Germany and completed another series of lithographs at Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles. From 1963 to 2000, he collaborated on prints and sculpture with Ken Tyler at Gemini Ltd., Gemini GEL in Los Angeles, and Tyler Graphics Ltd. in Bedford and Mt. Kisco, New York. Tyler commented about his friend: "He was a talented artist, excelling as a draftsman, sculptor, and printmaker. His witty, warm and inimitable personality is evident in his work and personal relationships."

In 1973, Crutchfield was guest artist of NASA at the Skylab II launch and that same year he was the subject of a half-hour special "William Crutchfield, Sage of Machine Wit" with Jonathan Winters and Vincent Price. Crutchfield was named Distinguished Artist of Los Angeles in 1982 and received the Music Center Club 100 Award.