Chancellor’s Professor of Art, University of Tennessee
Beauvais Lyons is the self-appointed Director of the Hokes Archives and has taught at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville since 1985. His one-person exhibitions have been presented at over 80 galleries and museums across the United States. He has published articles on his work in Archaeology, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Contemporary Impressions, The New Art Examiner, Leonardo and Burnaway. His work is cited by Antoinette LaFarge's "Sting in the Tale: Art, Hoax, and Provocation" (2021); Linda Hutcheon in "Irony’s Edge: A Theory and Politics of Irony" (1994); and by Lawrence Weschler in "Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder" (1995).
He has works in the collections of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. He was awarded the 2017 SECAC Award for Excellence in Teaching, a 2014 Santo Foundation Artist Award, and in 2011, he was awarded the title of Chancellor’s Professor at the University of Tennessee. He was awarded the Southeastern College Art Conference Award for Creative Achievement (1994), a Southern Art Federation/National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1988) and a Fulbright Fellowship to teach at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznañ, Poland (2002).
Lyons served as the President of the Southern Graphics Council International (1994-96), and has helped to organize four of their conferences, most recently in Knoxville in 2015. In 2003-2004 and again in 2017-2018 he served as President of the UT Knoxville Faculty Senate.
What is vernacular art? A visual artist explains
May 26, 2023 14:56 pm UTC| Insights & Views
Vernacular art is a genre of visual art made by artists who are usually self-taught. They tend to work outside of art academies and commercial galleries, which have traditionally been the purview of white, affluent artists...
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