Stanley Hayter
Stanley Hayter was born in Hackney, England to a family of artists. Though always interested in art, he began his adult life as a chemist and scientist. He went to Paris in 1926 to study at the Acadamie Julian. where he met the engraver Jospeh Hecht and began to merge his early training in chemistry with a new found interest in printmaking. Hayter would spend most of his life in Paris where, in 1927, he founded an experimental workshop for the graphic arts, Atelier 17, that played a central role in the 20th century revival of the print as an independent art form. Through the late 1920s and into the 1930s he began a series of experiments using engraving, soft-ground etching, gaffrauge, open-bite, scorper and other innovative, textural techniques, all loosely based on the Surrealist/Jungian concepts of subconscious image and automatic line. In 1940 Hayter moved to New York and re-founded Atelier 17 at the New School, moving to a studio on East 8 Street in 1945. The studio again became a melting pot for the artists who had come over from Europe, American artists and some young rebels. In New York the emphasis was on experimental color printing. As …
Stanley Hayter was born in Hackney, England to a family of artists. Though always interested in art, he began his adult life as a chemist and scientist. He went to Paris in 1926 to study at the Acadamie Julian. where he met the engraver Jospeh Hecht and began to merge his early training in chemistry with a new found interest in printmaking. Hayter would spend most of his life in Paris where, in 1927, he founded an experimental workshop for the graphic arts, Atelier 17, that played a central role in the 20th century revival of the print as an independent art form. Through the late 1920s and into the 1930s he began a series of experiments using engraving, soft-ground etching, gaffrauge, open-bite, scorper and other innovative, textural techniques, all loosely based on the Surrealist/Jungian concepts of subconscious image and automatic line. In 1940 Hayter moved to New York and re-founded Atelier 17 at the New School, moving to a studio on East 8 Street in 1945. The studio again became a melting pot for the artists who had come over from Europe, American artists and some young rebels. In New York the emphasis was on experimental color printing. As in Paris, the salability of the image was near the bottom of the list of expectations. Hayter returned to Paris in 1950 and re-established Atelier 17, attracting more international artists, many now coming from Asia. He continued to experiment with color printing, including the use of Flowmaster pens, incongruous and fluorescent colors and flowing, interwoven patterns.
Courtesy of Anita Shapolsky
