Description
The concept and style of this lithograph derives from an ongoing series by one of its co-creators, Beauvais Lyons, a professor in the School of Art at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, including the creation of the fictitious Hokes Archives, of which this print is a part. Lyons is a printmaker and writer who has taught at the University of Tennessee Knoxville since 1985, where he has awarded the title of Chancellor’s Professor in 2011. He has had over 80 solo exhibitions at galleries and museums across the US. Lyons has also published articles on his work in a variety of scholarly and art journals. His work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. Among his awards are a Fulbright Fellowship to Poland in 2002.
The following is part of the artist’s eloquent statement of the philosophy of his work, including the Hokes Archive:
For the past three decades I have created academic parody in a variety of mediums. For much of this time I fabricated and documented imaginary cultures. More recently I have been interested in biography, folk art, medicine, zoology and circuses. My lithographs are influenced by plates from old encyclopedias, the novellas of Jorge Luis Borges, 18th-century science, 19th-century printing, natural history museums, mirrors and lenses, anthrospheres, wunderkammers, and various forms of neglected scholarship. I prize the vernacular history of art. I prefer the facsimile to the original, and the imaginary to the real. I believe history is a work of fiction.
Robert Cothran is an internationally recognized scene designer as well as a graphic designer and printmaker and professor emeritus at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, where he taught from 1972 to 1998. Over a lengthy career spanning more than 55 years he designed sets for over 200 productions in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, at venues such as the Kennedy Center. Cothran began his education at Vanderbilt University but after becoming interested in theater, spent a year at the University of Tennessee studying acting and design. During a two-year stint in the United States Army service, he was trained in commercial art. After discharge he spent three years studying set design at the Yale University School of Drama. He worked at theatres in Puerto Rico; Richmond, Virginia; and the Pittsburgh Playhouse, after which he created a highly successful exhibit company. In 2014, Cothran was awarded the Clarence Brown Theatre Society’s Artistic Achievement Award by the University of Tennessee Theatre Department in recognition of his legacy. His designs and papers from 1954-2012 are in the archives of Ohio State University.
Full publication information in image: “Colorist & Printer Beauvais Lyons. Delineator & Sponge Boy Bob Cothran. Drawn & Litho. in Colors by C.D. Hokes, State St.”
Condition: Fine overall with only very minor wear. Deckled top and bottom edges, as issued.
References:
“Beauvais Lyons — Chancellor’s Professor.” University of Tennessee Knoxville. https://art.utk.edu/printmaking/lyons/ (1 July 2022).
Creekmore, Betsey B. “Robert Cothran.” University of Tennessee Knoxville Libraries. https://volopedia.lib.utk.edu/entries/robert-cothran/ (1 July 2022).
“Robert Cothran Theatrical Designs.” Ohio State University Special Collections Registry. https://library.osu.edu/collections/spec.tri.rcp (2 July 2022).
“Scenic Designer Bob Cothran to be Honored at Clarence Brown Theatre Gala.” University of Tennessee Knoxville News. 26 April 2014. http://tntoday.utk.edu/2014/04/16/scenic-designer-bob-cothran-honored-clarence-brown-theatre-gala/ (1 July 2022).
