Hayter, Stanley William (1901-1988)

English painter and graphic artist. He became influenced by the Surrealists after moving to Paris in 1926. In 1927 he set up Atelier 17, an experimental workshop for printmakers that had an enormous impact on the development of graphic art, attracting such figures as Picasso, Ernst, Miró, and Dalí. He was made a CBE in 1967.

Originally a chemist, Hayter became a master innovator of printmaking techniques, his work combining traditional media (like engraving) with other processes. He played a large part in the revival of printmaking. His books, also influential, include New Ways of Gravure (1949), About Prints (1962), and The Nature and Art of Motion (1964).

In 1939 he married the US sculptor Helen Phillips, and from 1940 to 1946 he lived in New York, where Atelier 17 attracted artists such as de Kooning, Pollock, Motherwell, and Rothko. He returned to France in 1950.