Stanley William Hayter
Encyclopedia
Stanley William Hayter CBE
(December 27, 1901, London – May 4, 1988, Paris
) was a British
painter
and printmaker
associated in the 1930s with Surrealism
and from 1940 onward with Abstract Expressionism
. Regarded as one of the most significant printmakers of the 20th century, in 1927 Hayter founded the legendary Atelier 17 studio in Paris. Since his death in 1988, it has been known as Atelier Contrepoint. Among the artists Hayter was credited with influencing were Pablo Picasso
, Alberto Giacometti
, Joan Miró
, Alexander Calder
, Marc Chagall
, Jackson Pollock
, and Mark Rothko
.
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).
, London
, on 27 December 1901, the son of painter William Harry Hayter. He received a degree in chemistry and geology from King's College London
and worked in Abadan
, Iran
for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company from 1922 to 1925. After Hayter returned home to convalesce from an attack of malaria
, his company arranged a one-man show at their headquarters in London of the paintings and drawings he had made while overseas. The exhibition's success (almost all the paintings sold) may have convinced Hayter to pursue a career as an artist.
In 1926, Hayter went to Paris
, where he studied briefly at the Académie Julian
. That same year, he met Polish
printmaker Józef Hecht
, who introduced Hayter to copper engraving using the traditional burin technique. Hecht helped Hayter acquire a press for starting a printmaking studio for artists young and old, experienced and inexperienced, to work together in exploring the engraving medium. In 1927, Hayter opened the studio, and in 1933 he moved it to No. 17, Rue Campagne-Première, where it became internationally known as Atelier 17.
Hayter worked with many contemporary artists to encourage their exploration of printmaking as a medium. Artists such as Miró
, Picasso and Kandinsky collaborated on creating print editions (Fraternité and Solidarité) to raise funds for the support of the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil war and the Communist Cause.
At the outbreak of World War II
, Hayter moved Atelier 17 to New York City
and taught prinkmaking at the New School. Artists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko made prints at the New York Atelier 17. During the war, Hayter collaborated with British artist, historian and poet Roland Penrose
and others in setting up a camouflage
training unit. He also first
produced finished prints with the method he called “simultaneous color printing,” where color was added to inked intaglio plates by means such as color-ink-soaked rags, stencils, or rolling a thicker, more viscous ink over a thinner ink, where the thicker ink is rejected and adheres only to the surface surrounding the first ink.
Hayter acted as advisor to the Museum of Modern Art
for the show Britain at War. In connection with the exhibition, he devised an analog computer
to duplicate the angle of the sun and shadow lengths for any time, day and latitude.
Returning to Paris in 1950, Hayter took Atelier 17 with him. Hayter was a prolific printmaker, completing more than 400 before his death. On Hayter's death in 1988, the studio 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 United States
he was an innovator in the Abstract Expressionism
movement.
In 2005 the Tate Archive acquired Hayter's papers.
He had three sons: Patrick (who died young) from his first marriage, and Augy and Julian Hayter from his second. Augy, an actor, writer and translator, died in 2005. Julian, a composer, musician and photographer, died in 2007.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(December 27, 1901, London – May 4, 1988, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and printmaker
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
associated in the 1930s with Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
and from 1940 onward with Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
. Regarded as one of the most significant printmakers of the 20th century, in 1927 Hayter founded the legendary Atelier 17 studio in Paris. Since his death in 1988, it has been known as Atelier Contrepoint. Among the artists Hayter was credited with influencing were Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.Alberto Giacometti was born in the canton Graubünden's southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-Impressionist painter...
, Joan Miró
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
, Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...
, Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
, Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
, and Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
.
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
Intaglio (printmaking)
Intaglio is a family of printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface, known as the matrix or plate, and the incised line or area holds the ink. Normally, copper or zinc plates are used as a surface, and the incisions are created by etching, engraving, drypoint, aquatint or...
plate).
Career
Hayter was born in HackneyHackney (parish)
Hackney was a parish in the historic county of Middlesex. The parish church of St John-at-Hackney was built in 1789, replacing the nearby former 16th century parish church dedicated to St Augustine . The original tower of that church was retained to hold the bells until the new church could be...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, on 27 December 1901, the son of painter William Harry Hayter. He received a degree in chemistry and geology from King's College London
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
and worked in Abadan
Abadan
Abadan is a city in and the capital of Abadan County, Khuzestan Province, Iran. It lies on Abadan Island , from the Persian Gulf, near the Iraqi-Iran border. The civilian population of the city dropped to near zero during the eight-years Iran–Iraq War. In 1992, only 84,774 had returned to live...
, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company from 1922 to 1925. After Hayter returned home to convalesce from an attack of malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
, his company arranged a one-man show at their headquarters in London of the paintings and drawings he had made while overseas. The exhibition's success (almost all the paintings sold) may have convinced Hayter to pursue a career as an artist.
In 1926, Hayter went to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where he studied briefly at the Académie Julian
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...
. That same year, he met Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
printmaker Józef Hecht
Józef Hecht
Józef Hecht , more commonly known as Joseph Hecht, was a Polish painter, engraver and printmaker. Trained in classical engraving techniques, Hecht had a profound influence on 20th century printmaking.-Career:...
, who introduced Hayter to copper engraving using the traditional burin technique. Hecht helped Hayter acquire a press for starting a printmaking studio for artists young and old, experienced and inexperienced, to work together in exploring the engraving medium. In 1927, Hayter opened the studio, and in 1933 he moved it to No. 17, Rue Campagne-Première, where it became internationally known as Atelier 17.
Hayter worked with many contemporary artists to encourage their exploration of printmaking as a medium. Artists such as Miró
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
, Picasso and Kandinsky collaborated on creating print editions (Fraternité and Solidarité) to raise funds for the support of the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil war and the Communist Cause.
At the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Hayter moved Atelier 17 to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and taught prinkmaking at the New School. Artists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko made prints at the New York Atelier 17. During the war, Hayter collaborated with British artist, historian and poet Roland Penrose
Roland Penrose
Sir Roland Algernon Penrose CBE was an English artist, historian and poet. He was a major promoter and collector of modern art and an associate of the surrealists in the United Kingdom.- Biography :...
and others in setting up a camouflage
Camouflage
Camouflage is a method of concealment that allows an otherwise visible animal, military vehicle, or other object to remain unnoticed, by blending with its environment. Examples include a leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier and a leaf-mimic butterfly...
training unit. He also first
produced finished prints with the method he called “simultaneous color printing,” where color was added to inked intaglio plates by means such as color-ink-soaked rags, stencils, or rolling a thicker, more viscous ink over a thinner ink, where the thicker ink is rejected and adheres only to the surface surrounding the first ink.
Hayter acted as advisor to the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
for the show Britain at War. In connection with the exhibition, he devised an analog computer
Analog computer
An analog computer is a form of computer that uses the continuously-changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved...
to duplicate the angle of the sun and shadow lengths for any time, day and latitude.
Returning to Paris in 1950, Hayter took Atelier 17 with him. Hayter was a prolific printmaker, completing more than 400 before his death. On Hayter's death in 1988, the studio was renamed Atelier Contrepoint.
Hayter continued to develop painting alongside printmaking. His interest in automatism
Surrealist automatism
Automatism has taken on many forms: the automatic writing and drawing initially practiced by surrealists can be compared to similar, or perhaps parallel phenomena, such as the non-idiomatic improvisation of free jazz....
led him to associate with the Surrealists
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, and in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
he was an innovator in the Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
movement.
In 2005 the Tate Archive acquired Hayter's papers.
Legacy and honors
- 1951 - Hayter received an Officer (OBE) rank in the Order of the British EmpireOrder of the British EmpireThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
- 1951 - The French government awarded him the Légion d'honneurLégion d'honneurThe Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
. - Great Britain chose him as representative artist at the 1958 Venice BiennaleVenice BiennaleThe Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
. - 1967 - He was made Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of the Ordre des Arts et des LettresOrdre des Arts et des LettresThe Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
. - 1968 - He received a Commander (CBE) rank in the Order of the British EmpireOrder of the British EmpireThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
.
Personal life
Hayter was married three times: to Edith Fletcher (dissolved 1929), to American sculptor Helen Phillips (dissolved 1971), and to Irish poet and writer Desiree Moorhead, with whom he lived in Paris at the time of his death in 1988.He had three sons: Patrick (who died young) from his first marriage, and Augy and Julian Hayter from his second. Augy, an actor, writer and translator, died in 2005. Julian, a composer, musician and photographer, died in 2007.
Further reading
- Peter Black and Désirée Moorhead, The Prints of Stanley William Hayter: A Complete Catalogue, Mount Kisco, NY: Moyer Bell Limited, 1992.
External links
- Atelier Contrepoint, Website
- "Stanley William Hayter", Government Art Collection, Department for Culture, Media and Sport
- "Stanley William Hayter", Tate Gallery