History of Art: Stanley William Hayter

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Stanley William Hayter

Stanley William Hayter

Stanley William Hayter (1901, London-1988, Paris) was a British surrealist painter and printmaker. He was descended from a line of artists; his great-great-grandfather, John, was brother to the painter Sir George Hayter. He is noted for his innovative work in the development of viscosity printing (a process that exploits varying viscosities of oil-based inks to lay three or more colours on a single intaglio plate). His Times obituary described him as having "revolutionized the art of engraving, with his far-reaching experiments in colour and texture".

He graduated in chemistry and geology from King's College, London, and worked in Abadan for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company from 1922 to 1925. On his being invalided home to London after a malaria attack, his company arranged a one-man show of his works from his period overseas.

In 1926 he went to Paris, studying at the Académie Julian and learning line engraving techniques, especially copper engraving using the traditional burin, from Joseph Hecht. In 1927 he founded a studio, which in 1933 moved to No 17, Rue Campagne-Premiere, where it became internationally known as Atelier 17. Its printmaking techniques influenced such artists as Picasso, Miró, Arp, Tanguy, Giacometti, Ernst, Trevelyan and Peterdi. Atelier 17 moved to New York on the outbreak of World War II.

During World War II, Hayter collaborated with Roland Penrose, Trevelyan and others in setting up a camouflage unit, later acting as advisor to the Museum of Modern Art for a show, Britain at War. For this, he devised an analog computer to duplicate the angle of the sun and shadow lengths for any time, day and latitude.

Atalier 17 returned to Paris in 1950. On Hayter's death in 1988 it was renamed Atelier Contrepoint.

Hayter continued to develop painting alongside printmaking. His interest in automatism led him to associate with the Surrealists, and in the USA he was an innovator in the Abstract Expressionism movement.