Nathan and Joan Lyons Scholarship

Nathan Lyons, founder and director of Visual Studies Workshop and his wife Joan Lyons, founder of the Visual Studies Workshop Press, established a scholarship to support graduate study in the College’s Department of Visual Studies at Visual Studies Workshop.

Mr. Lyons (1930 – 2016) used exhibits, writing, and workshops to advance photography as an art. He served as a curator, then director, of the George Eastman Museum from 1957 to 1969 before founding Visual Studies Workshop in 1969. His goal was to provide education and graduate degrees in all aspects of photography. In 1972, he created Afterimage, the workshop’s arts journal.

He published collections of his photography, including Notations in Passing in 1974, Riding 1st Class on the Titanic! in 1999, After 9/11 in 2003, and Return Your Mind to Its Upright Position in 2014. He received the Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement from the International Center of Photography in 2000, and he was honored with a retrospective of his work at the George Eastman Museum in 2019.

Joan Lyons is an artist who works in photography, print, digital media and artists’ books. She earned her bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Alfred University and her master’s from the University at Buffalo. She has taught printmaking, printing, photography, and artists’ book production since 1971, and founded the Visual Studies Workshop Press in 1972.

Her work has been exhibited nationally and is held in many permanent collections, including George Eastman Museum, Visual Studies Workshop Collection, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. In addition, she has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. Mrs. Lyons edited Artists Books: A Critical Anthology and Source Book in 1985.

Qualified applicants for the Nathan and Joan Lyons Scholarship must be accepted into the master of fine arts program in the Department of Visual Arts at Visual Studies Workshop, demonstrate artistic or critical excellence as well as a need for financial assistance as determined by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).