{{short description|American artist known for photography, printmaking, and book arts}} {{For|the fictional character|The Cured}} '''Joan Lyons''' (born 1937) is an American artist known for her work in photography, printmaking, and book arts. She is the Founding Director of Rochester's Visual Studies Workshop Press.<ref>{{Cite web |last=kpillman |date=2023-02-08 |title=Extending the Limits: Joan Lyons at MAG |url=https://mag.rochester.edu/press-release/extending-the-limits-joan-lyons-at-mag/ |access-date=2024-05-14 |website=Memorial Art Gallery |language=en-US}}</ref>
== Early life and education == Lyons was born in New York, New York.<ref name="NGC" />
Lyons has a BFA from Alfred University, New York (1957), and an MFA from SUNY Buffalo, New York (1973).
== Career == In 1971, Lyons co-founded the VSW Press at the Rochester-based Visual Studies Workshop.<ref name="Peres2014">{{cite book|author=Michael R. Peres|title=The Concise Focal Encyclopedia of Photography: From the First Photo on Paper to the Digital Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EQh6AgAAQBAJ&pg=PT241|date=20 June 2014|publisher=CRC Press|isbn=978-1-136-10181-6|pages=241–}}</ref>
The preview material for a 2023 retrospective at the University of Rochester states, "Joan Lyons has been a fearless innovator in a wide range of historical and contemporary image-making processes, as well as newly invented reproduction technologies of the 1960s–1980s. Lyons embraces chance and uncertainty as opportunities for discovery." It continues, "While Lyons is adept with process and equipment, her starting point is the idea that the people and everyday objects around us accrue value from our interactions with them. The humble objects she pictures—chairs, plants, a well-used apron—achieve a heightened status as artifacts owned, used, and perceived by humans. From the '60s through the '80s, she created a feminist inquiry into the deeply personal and particular as subjects for her art. To this day she continues to investigate the power and conventions of photography, image-making, and representation within Western culture."<ref name="Memorial Art Gallery">{{cite web |title=Joan Lyons |url=https://mag.rochester.edu/exhibitions/joan-lyons/ |access-date=14 March 2023 |website=Memorial Art Gallery}}</ref>
Additional retrospectives include in 2007 at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center; and in 2018 at Steven Kasher Gallery in New York and Paris.<ref name="Memorial Art Gallery" /> The Steven Kasher Gallery claims, "Her groundbreaking work freely combines feminist theory and personal experience. Her work is intimate and introspective, questioning the indexical quality of photography. Lyons' work defies every artistic taboo of the 1950s. She had been taught that contemporary art should be universal, gestural, abstract, monumental, qualities which are inherently masculine. After trying and failing to follow these mandates, Lyons' realized that her work could not be separated from her own experiences as a woman. Her personal narrative, different in content and tone from the dominant male voice, pushed her to establish new artistic structures."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Joan Lyons - Artists - Steven Kasher Gallery |url=https://www.stevenkasher.com/artists/joan-lyons |access-date=2024-05-14 |website=www.stevenkasher.com |language=en}}</ref>
BFA at Alfred University, New York (1957), and an MFA at SUNY Buffalo, New York (1973) Lyons' work is included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,<ref name="The MFAH Collections">{{cite web |title=Artifacts |url=https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/9409/artifacts |website=The MFAH Collections |access-date=14 March 2023 |language=en}}</ref> the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mocp.org/detail.php?type=related&kv=17743&t=objects|title=Museum of Contemporary Photography|website=www.mocp.org}}</ref> the Museum of Modern Art,<ref name="The Museum of Modern Art">{{cite web |title=Joan Lyons |url=https://www.moma.org/artists/3651 |website=The Museum of Modern Art |access-date=14 March 2023}}</ref> the Minneapolis Institute of Art,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://collections.artsmia.org/art/23283/untitled-joan-lyons |title=Untitled, Joan Lyons | Mia |access-date=2019-05-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190505231542/https://collections.artsmia.org/art/23283/untitled-joan-lyons |archive-date=2019-05-05 |url-status=live }}</ref> and the National Gallery of Canada,<ref name="NGC">{{cite web|url=https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/joan-lyons|title=Joan Lyons|website=www.gallery.ca|access-date=2019-05-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190505231258/https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/joan-lyons|archive-date=2019-05-05|url-status=live}}</ref> and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.<ref name="Library & Research Center">{{cite web |title=Joan Lyons |url=https://nmwa.bibliovation.com/app/search/(Joan%20Lyons) |website=NMWA Library & Research Center |access-date=14 March 2023}}</ref>
The ''Joan Lyons Independent Press Archive'' is located at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester New York.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Search The Joan Lyons Independent Press Archive |url=https://www.vsw.org/collections/books/independent-press-archive/ |access-date=2024-05-14 |website=Visual Studies Workshop |language=en}}</ref>
== Publications ==
* ''Artists' Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook'' (1986, 1988, 1991, 1993)<ref name="Memorial Art Gallery" /> * ''Artists' Books: Visual Studies Workshop Press 1972–2008'' (2009)<ref name="Memorial Art Gallery" />
==References== {{Reflist}}
== External links == * [https://www.joanlyons.com/ Official website]{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lyons, Joan}} Category:Living people Category:1937 births Category:20th-century American women artists Category:21st-century American women artists Category:Alfred University alumni Category:American feminist artists Category:American photographers Category:American printmakers Category:American women photographers Category:American women printmakers Category:American book artists Category:American women book artists