Cited as saying, “I have set my prices to their pocket books”, Byxbe was an example of an ideal often associated with printmaking as a democratic art available for the masses through prints. He most often worked in intaglio, which is a way of creating recesses in metal plates to hold the ink for printing. His techniques included aquatint, etching, and drypoint. Multiple prints of the same image made an “edition” and shared the imagery of what is now Rocky Mountain National Park with visitors to the area.
Byxbe was born in Illinois in 1888, and from a young age, liked to draw the world around him. He had no formal art training though he did have one stint studying metal plate etching with an architect in Omaha, N.E. This would pave the way for some small-scale early commercial success as an artist.
Always migrating further west, in 1922, Lyman and his wife, Geneva, began traveling to Estes Park, CO in the summers. The Byxbes opened their popular gallery of Lyman’s handmade prints of local views and structures. From this Colorado outpost, Byxbe gained national notoriety and was featured in a one person show at the Smithsonian in 1937. Following the show, the couple made Estes Park their permanent home. Here they would sell affordable, hand-pulled prints from their gallery on the main street in Estes Park for decades, becoming an early staple of the arts in the Rocky Mountain State.
(1886 – 1980)