Rate My Professor Beauvais Lyons

Beauvais Lyons is a Chancellor's Professor in the School of Art within Arts and Culture at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he has taught printmaking since 1985. Appointed Divisional Dean for the Arts and Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences in July 2023, he leads initiatives in this field. Lyons also directs the Hokes Archives, fabricating and documenting artifacts from imaginary civilizations, including the Aazudians, Apasht, and Arenot cultures. He earned a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980 and an MFA from Arizona State University in 1983. Throughout his career, Lyons has served in key leadership roles, including President of the UT Knoxville Faculty Senate during 2003-2004 and 2017-2018.

Lyons specializes in printmaking and mock-academic parody, exploring archaeological fiction, imaginary histories, folk art, medical arts, zoology, and circuses through various media. His solo exhibitions number over 80 at museums and galleries across the United States and Europe. Prints reside in prominent collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. He has published scholarly articles on his practice in Archaeology, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Contemporary Impressions, The New Art Examiner, Art Journal, Leonardo, and Burnaway. Notable publications include 'The Excavation of the Apasht: Artifacts from an Imaginary Past' (Leonardo, 1985) and 'The Civilization of Llhuros: The First Multimedia Exhibition in the Genre of Archaeological Fiction' (Leonardo, 1991, with Norman Daly). His work is cited by Linda Hutcheon in Irony's Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony (1994) and by Lawrence Weschler in Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder (1995), underscoring his impact on discussions of irony and wonder in art. Lyons received a Fulbright Fellowship to teach at the Fine Art Academy in Poznań, Poland (2002) and the Santo Foundation Artist Award (2014).