The Atelier 17

Hayter returned to Paris in 1950 and soon found a premise where he was able to re-establish Atelier 17. Over the subsequent years there were to be many other moves right up until his death in 1986. During the 1950s artists in the workshop were mainly European plus a steady stream from the U.S.A. who had studied with people from the New York Atelier 17 group now teaching art and printmaking at university faculties right across the U.S. During the 60s, 70s and 80s many printmakers arrived from Japan and Korea also India and South America working side by side, exchanging ideas and techniques plus the inevitable cultural exchange resulting in a lively, dynamic camaraderie.

The use of colour in printmaking gradually assumed more importance beginning in the 50s and 60s. This resulted from the long and patient search started in the 1930s by Hayter and Anthony Gross. They were convinced that Hercule Seghers had used simultaneous colour and they tried to unravel the process. During the 1940s many attempts were tried with varying results. Already Hayter’s 1947 print, Falling Figure, while using screens also employed inks of different viscosities but the results were not conclusive until the early 1950s when Krishna Reddy and Kaiko Mots slotted the final piece into the jigsaw. Since then simultaneous colour printing, more commonly named viscosity printing, is widely used and under the aegis of Hector Saunier, a master of the technique, continues to change and develop.

REFERENCE BOOKS ON ATELIER 17

About Prints, S.W.Hayter, Oxford University Press, 1962.
New Ways of Gravure, S.W. Hayter, Watson-Guptill, 1981.
The Renaissance of Gravure, Edited by P.M.S. Hacker, Oxford University Press, 1988.
About Prints; the Legacy of S.W. Hayter and Atelier 17, Domenic Icon, Syracuse University Gallery, 2016.
Hayter et l’Atelier 17, Carla Esposito, Electa, 1990.
Atelier 17, Joann Moser, Elvehjem Art Center, Madison, Wisconsin, 1977.