Stanley William Hayter

Stanley William Hayter (1901-1988) was one of the most important printmakers and printmaking teachers of the twentieth century, whose Atelier 17 workshop brought together an extraordinary community of artists and transformed the technical and expressive possibilities of the print. Born in London, Hayter initially studied chemistry and geology before turning fully to art in his mid-twenties, and this early scientific training gave him the technical curiosity and methodical experimentation that would define his working practice.

In 1927, Hayter founded Atelier 17 in Paris, a workshop devoted to the revitalization of intaglio printmaking. Over the following decades, virtually every major modernist artist working in Europe passed through its studios, and Hayter collaborated directly with Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky, Max Ernst, and Alberto Giacometti, among many others. Atelier 17 became a laboratory for radical experimentation in engraving, etching, and mixed intaglio techniques, and Hayter's own innovations, including his celebrated viscosity printing method that allowed multiple colors to be printed from a single plate in a single pass, transformed the technical vocabulary of contemporary printmaking.

During the Second World War, Hayter relocated Atelier 17 to New York, where his workshop became a decisive influence on the emerging American avant-garde. Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, and other future Abstract Expressionists learned printmaking through Hayter's Atelier, and the experience shaped the visual language of postwar American abstraction in profound ways. After the war Hayter returned Atelier 17 to Paris, where he continued to teach and work until his death. He received the Legion of Honor and was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and his prints and paintings are held in the leading museums worldwide.