Artist Bio:
Nathan Lyons (1930 - 2016) was an integral part of almost every area of photography as photographer, educator, publisher, lecturer, author, and curator. He is Founding Director Emeritus, Visual Studies Workshop (1969–2001) and Distinguished Professor Emeritus, SUNY Brockport. He holds Honorary Doctorates from Rhode Island School of Design (2004), Corcoran School of Art (1995), and Alfred University (2006), and was named Honored Educator, Society for Photographic Education (1997). Lyons was Associate Director and Curator of Photography, Editor of Publications, and Director of Extension Activities at the George Eastman House (1961–1969). He was a founder and first chairman of the Society for Photographic Education, and initiated the formation of Oracle, an annual meeting of photographic curators. Lyons has exhibited extensively since 1956 with work represented in numerous collections. He was the recipient of the International Center of Photography Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement in Photography (2000) and Friends of Photography Peer Awards in Creative Photography—Award for Distinguished Career in Photography (1989).

Lyons has published four books of photographs, comprising an extended sequence of images begun in the early 1960s. They are: Notations in Passing (1974), Riding First Class on the Titanic (1999), After 9/11 (2003), Return Your Mind to its Upright Position (2013). Nathan Lyons: Selected Essays, Lectures, and Interviews, edited by Jessica McDonald was published by University of Texas Press (2012). Nathan Lyons: In Pursuit of Magic, George Eastman Museum and University of Texas Press (2019) accompanied a retrospective exhibition of this work at GEM.

By1962 Nathan Lyons the photographer had settled on his preferred methodology and format, wide angle 35 mm hand camera photography, and black and white 5 x7 inch silver gelatin prints, which, by the early 1970’s, he would mount in pairs in a single mat for exhibition. Soon he would be organizing extended sequences of images and planning the utilization of the book medium for displaying his work. Assuming a variety of roles, resembling sociologist, ethnographer, anthropologist, observer, commentator, poet, essayist, and historian, Nathan Lyons shows us overt and hidden dimensions of material culture and belief systems. The photographs and the books of photographs offer his views of the social world surrounding us in ever closer, intimately tighter encircling realities.