Biography

Beauvais Lyons is a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville (USA) where he has taught printmaking since 1985. Lyons received his MFA degree from Arizona State University in 1983 and his BFA degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980. His prints are in numerous public collections including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC (USA); The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (USA); and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. PA (USA). He organized the IMPACT 4 conference held in Berlin, Germany and Poznañ, Poland in 2005.

Illustrated Talk

The Legacy of Reverend James Randolph Denton
A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA), James Randolph Denton founded the Association for Creative Zoology in 1908 an effort to rebut the popularization of evolutionary theory in American public schools and universities. Working with the London publisher Everitt Ormsby Hokes, founder of Hokes Scholarly Lithography, Denton published two collections of color lithographs documenting the principle of animal hybridity, what he referred to as “zoomorphic juncture.” These were Rare Zoological Specimens and Ornithological Quadrupeds, both published in the 1920s, the second of which emulates the publications of the British naturalist John Gould. Arguing for Creation Science, Reverend Denton cited the unicorn and the dragon, each of which are mentioned in the King James Edition of the Bible, as examples of this phenomena. Denton argued that animal hybridity explained species diversity and disputed the principles of natural selection. Homer and Hesiod reported the existence of chimera in the ancient world and the archaeological and fossil record is replete with examples of hybrid creatures including the Winged Bull of Assyria, the Persian Dragon Azhi Dahaka, Yali from India and the Centaur and Griffin from Ancient Greece. This illustrated talk will be structured around several Biblical passages that Denton often read in support creation science and will include an extensive number of lithographs, fossils and taxidermy of hybrid animals that he presented at public events in the eastern United States in the early 20th century. As it is written in Psalm 104: “O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, werein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.”

Themed Panel (Proposed)

Printopias
“Printopias,” are invented histories and imaginary worlds represented through print media. As a medium that historically combines image and text, the print reaches into multiple areas of cultural production, encompassing the natural sciences, medicine, biography, ephemera, political science, history, numismatics, cartography, architecture, archaeology, and more. In his paper, John Phillips will examine the role of postage stamps as national and cultural markers, making a case for the ways that stamps have been employed as instruments of propaganda and ‘icons’ of national pride by governments of all political persuasions. Curtis Bartone will address artists who have created their own printed utopias, dystopias, and combinations of the two. Bartone argues that printmaking is an integral and necessary part of these visions as it lends validity and authority, a historical “stamp of approval.” Racula Iancu will present “Three Bridges,” a collaborative printmaking project that was presented at the 2013 SGC International Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (USA) last March. For the project, students and faculty from three separate universities created three dimensionally printed cities at 1:50 scale representing utopian and dystopian aspects of their home cities and campuses. Taken together, all three papers will present a broad and multi-dimensional overview of the subject “Printopias.”