Stanley William Hayter

Stanley William Hayter was born in London in 1901 and died in 1988. He is one of the most influential printmakers of the twentieth century. At only 12 he obtained a scholarship and made his first paintings. Then, for his studies and his first job, he turned to chemistry. While he was Samuel Smiles' research assistant in his work on the organic components of sulfur, he began to take an interest in engraving. From 1925 he began to paint more regularly and produced a series of portraits of his colleagues. In 1925, he decided to devote himself to painting, settled in Paris and took a studio in rue du Moulin Vert, studied at the Julian Academy, made his first dry points, aquatints and woodcuts. At this time he met Joseph Hecht, Polish engraver. From 1840 he will teach sculpture and painting in the USA. In 1978 he was elected Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Honorary Doctorate of Hamline University (Minnesota) and in 1982 he was elected Honorary Member of the Royal Academy.