Untitled (Nathan Lyons)
Artist
Joan Lyons
(American, born 1937)
Date1974
Mediumoffset lithograph from a Haloid-Xerox transfer
DimensionsImage: 21 3/4 x 15 1/2 in. (55.2 x 39.4 cm)
Support: 26 1/8 x 19 1/8 in. (66.4 x 48.6 cm)
Mat: 28 x 22 in. (71.1 x 55.9 cm)
Support: 26 1/8 x 19 1/8 in. (66.4 x 48.6 cm)
Mat: 28 x 22 in. (71.1 x 55.9 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineJane Reese Williams Collection, Museum acquisition through the New Mexico Council on Photography, 1988
Object number1988.367.24
DescriptionXerographic portrait in multiple images, of man holding sea shell. He wears metal framed eyeglasses and bracelet on proper left wrist. His long sleeve shirt sleeves are rolled up to elbow.eMuseum Notes
During a conversation in Santa Fe with curator Katherine Ware, the artist noted that she was using an old Haloid Xerox machine and using it like a view camera with a selenium-coated plate. She said these composite portraits “could take a long time.” Where light hit the plate, she cascaded toner over it and it would stick to the charged surface. Then she would transfer the image to a piece of paper by hand. It was unfixed on the paper and required heat or solvent to fix the print. Lyons says she was frustrated by the size limits of traditional photo paper so this was an interesting alternative. When asked about the sea shell in the picture, she said that Nathan picked it up and “was goofing around.”
The subject is the artist’s husband, the eminent photographer, curator, and educator Nathan Lyons (1930-1916). Lyons worked at the George Eastman House in Rochester before co-founding the Visual Studies Workshop with Joan Lyons. He was a founder of the Society of Photographic Education, among many accomplishments.
On View
On view
