Nathan Lyons was born in 1930 in Queens, New York. He is equally renown for his art as he is for his contribution to photographic education. In 1969, Lyons founded Photographic Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York.
His black-and-white images turn a critical eye on American culture and our visual landscape. His work is in the collections of major museums around the world, including the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, ICP, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Lyons has published several books, such as Photographers on Photography, Towards a Social Landscape, and Persistence of Vision. He was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Senior Fellowship in 1985.