Stanley William Hayter
Combat
1936, published 1941


With visionary zeal and unflinching energy, Stanley William Hayter did much to foster intaglio printmaking as an innovative technique. In 1927, after moving from London to Paris and studying engraving with the artist Joseph Hecht, he founded his own workshop, which he named Atelier 17 in 1933 after its new street address. In 1940, with the outbreak of war, Atelier 17 moved to New York and became a meeting place for exiled European artists and American artists working in various styles. The workshop was transplanted back to Paris in the 1950s.

Hayter's induction into Surrealist practice in the late 1920s established the unconscious as a source of his art. His noteworthy contributions to printmaking include an expressive and flexible engraved line that was influenced by automatism; a textural depth created through etching; and innovations in color printing on a single plate.