Nathan Lyons (1930-2016) by Bruno Chalifour a Generation of Photography Pillars Is Frittering Away
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TPHS Newsletter 5 September 2016 In Memoriam — Nathan Lyons (1930-2016) by Bruno Chalifour A generation of photography pillars is frittering away. different, if not radical, solution to the structuring of On Wednesday, August 31st 2016, Nathan Lyons, co- photographic books, going far beyond a simple if not founder of the Society for Photographic education (1962 simplistic accumulation of photographs, or a linear and 1963), assistant director at George Eastman House narrative structure. Reaching beyond the accumulation (until 1969), and mostly known as the founder and of images to create a system that explored the work director of Visual Studies Workshop (1969-2001) and its further than its obvious content, clarifying the author’s international magazine, Afterimage, passed away in “voice,” collaborating with the photographer to adapt Rochester, New York. the work to the space (book, exhibition, slide show,…) in Rather than a straight-forward biography which can which it was displayed was in fact the real goal of a be read on Wikipedia or the New York Times (http:// curator, a publisher, or a gallery-owner. It was the role www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/arts/design/nathan- and more, the duty, of a teacher to bring his/her photo- lyons-dead.html?_r=0), I would like to evoke the students to this level of understanding and practice of memory of a man who changed the course of my life, as the medium. he did for so many. It would take me another similar workshop the I met Nathan Lyons for the first time in 1988 in Arles following year with Régis Durand (at the time photo- (France) where he was teaching a 5-days’ workshop–to critic for Art Press, soon to become the director of the which I had registered–at the local photo festival, Les Centre National de la Photographie in Paris), and two or three Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie (first created in years of analyzing and processing the situation of photo- 1970). The topic of the workshop was, broadly speaking, education and visual literacy in France. At the time, the visual literacy, and, more specifically, how to read lack of exposure to and study of photography as a photographs and organize them in meaningful cultural phenomenon of our times and as a full-fledged sequences and series, one of Nathan’s favorite subjects. means of expression in the French educational system, As, then, a certified professor of English, a free-lance from middle school to college, frustrated me. I felt that if photo-journalist for a regional newspaper, and a the educational institutions did not embrace secretary of a regional committee for photography, the photography, I had to bring photography to them. I had topic and Nathan’s short biography must have convinced already been doing that at K-12 level and in various me to register and spend five days of my summer photo-clubs. I decided to go back to college and register vacations studying with him. The workshop was taught in a Ph. D. program, in an English department where in English. Although Nathan did not speak any French, my research would be on English and American Stuart Alexander, his remarkable assistant, did, a little, so photography. Once my course-work done, my plan was a young English student, having just spent a year in to write my pre-dissertation (DEA memoir) on Bill France, had been appointed by the festival to help with Brandt and my dissertation on contemporary American the translations. The problem was that we also spoke photography–the latter for personal reasons too as my “photography”; she did not. Soon I found myself own practice had shifted from traditional French street/ assisting the assistant, which allowed me to have a few humanistic photography to landscape used as a conversations with Nathan, especially during his regular metaphor. cigarette breaks. One day was entirely dedicated to the My next step was to contact Nathan Lyons and ask study, analysis, and to a following discussion on Robert him for advice regarding where I should do my research. Frank’s The Americans. That day was a revelation to me. His answer was that New York City sounded like an Nathan quietly explained how the themes in the book obvious answer, but there access was not always were interwoven, how the structure of the book, the facilitated, and the cost of life was superior to what it relationships it established between groups of was in Rochester. Between the George Eastman House photographs duly “flagged” by photographs including library and archive, the Rochester Institute of the American flag, created meaning beyond the sum of Technology, the University of Rochester, and of course the meaning of each photograph. The Americans was in Visual Studies Workshop, I had probably more than I fact an amazing analysis not just of American culture in could research and use. I could not then imagine how the 1950s, of its “social landscape,” but also of the right he was and how his advice would radically change medium at that point of its history. It also proposed a my life. The George Eastman House and even more, TPHS Newsletter 6 September 2016 In Memoriam — Nathan Lyons (1930-2016) by Bruno Chalifour (cont.) Nathan’s Visual Studies Workshop became my favorite Boubat, Brassaï, Burri, Clergue, Gardin, Gautrand, research centers, not just because of their physical Giacomelli, Harbutt, Hosoe, Mayne, McCullin, resources, but, above all, because of their human ones. Riboud… It can probably be said that when he resigned Between conversations with Nathan himself and Bill from GEH in 1969, in solidarity with a co-employee Johnson, then in charge of VSW’s research center–Bill is fired for alleged “sorcery,” his role and impact regarding a bottomless well regarding the history of photography, American photography eclipsed John Szarkowski’s at the including its anecdotes–numerous meetings and Museum of Modern Art (New York). interviews of photographers in Upstate New York (which Following his unexpected departure from GEH, I jokingly came to nickname the Bermuda triangle of Nathan Lyons decided to create his own (alternative) photography with its unbelievable wealth of institution, a block away from the museum, in a photographic knowledge spreading between Syracuse carpenter’s workshop on Elton Street. With his (Lightwork), Rochester (GEH, RIT, U of R, VSW), and convincing the State University of New York at Buffalo Buffalo (CEPA, SUNY Buffalo, “Buff. State”, Albright- to let him create a Master’s of Fine Art program for Knox Gallery)) I realized and identified the limits of my them in Rochester, Visual Studies Workshop was born… photographic experience and was given the tools to in an empty shell, in 1969. From its very inception a expand my expertise until a day in December 2002 I tradition was established at VSW that the teaching staff became both a member of the teaching staff at VSW and the students were responsible for the creation and and the editor of Afterimage. maintenance of the place. Everyone had to be involved I had then learnt that Nathan Lyons had come to in the communal teaching/learning experiment. Over Rochester by chance after spending three years of the forty years later, in 2001, as Nathan was going to retire, I Korean war as an intelligence photographer. After happened to find him one morning still sweeping away graduating from Alfred University in 1957 with a BA in the autumn leaves that the northwest wind usually blew English literature–thence I suppose his fascination for into the lobby every time someone walked into 10 Prince both photographs and words–Nathan was on his way Street (the second and current location of VSW). From from Alfred to Chicago. As he was visiting Rochester, he the end of 2002 to the beginning of 2005, while a stopped and met Minor White at George Eastman member of the VSW faculty and an editor of its House. The museum had just opened its doors in 1949. magazine Afterimage (founded in 1972), I, in turn, would Beaumont Newhall, its first curator of photographs had sweep away the leaves, maintain my office, participate in recruited Minor White on the recommendation of his the general cleanings or paintings. friend Ansel Adams. White was in charge of the After chairing the Society for Photographic Education, museum’s publication, Image. He asked Nathan if he Nathan would be asked to sit at many a committee would be interested in becoming his assistant. Nathan throughout the country, National Endowment for the agreed. Three years later he would be appointed Arts included. Nathan’s former students can be found on assistant director and would, with like-minded people the rosters of most prestigious American institutions in around him, accomplish an unmatched work for the arts (MoMA, Metropolitan Museum, International photography: developing teaching and training Center of Photography, George Eastman House,…), programs, resources for teachers (books, catalogues, teaching in universities throughout the country, the compilations of historical texts on photography, sets of recipients of NEA grants and Guggenheim Fellowships, slides for schools and universities), co-founding the leading amazing projects such as Mark Klett and the Society for Photographic Education (1962-63), three Rephotographic Surveys, or Anne Tucker, one of promoting the medium through a program of traveling Nathan’s very first students who recently (June 2015) exhibitions, promoting young photographers. Six years retired from the Houston Museum of Fine Arts while after his hiring he would have not only exhibited Lee one of the finest American if not world curators, building Friedlander for the first time but Bruce Davidson, Carl an incredible collection of photographs (including the Chiarenza, Ken Josephson, Eugene Meatyard, Ray whole set of The Americans), creating seminal (often Metzker, Duane Michals, Pete Turner, Jerry Uelsmann, traveling) exhibitions (Richard Misrach, Women in Pho- Garry Winogrand, Paul Caponigro, Jerome Liebling, Art tography, the History of Japanese Photography, Brassaï, Kane, William Klein, Art Sinsabaugh not to mention Ray Metzker, Robert Frank, the Photo League,…).