Sea
Serpent is a color intaglio from 1976 by the influential printmaker
Stanley William Hayter (1901-1988). It is pencil signed, titled, dated, and
editioned 43/75. It was printed on Rives wove paper by Hector Saunier at
Atelier 17 in Paris. This intaglio was created using engraving, etching, and soft-ground
etching and the image measures 16-3/16 x 21 inches platemark. The reference is
Black & Moorhead 386.
As Hayter aged his colors got brighter and more
electric, even fluorescent, and moved in crisscrossing, rhythmic movements. He
utilized all the simultaneous printing methods that the printmakers at Atelier
17 had developed in the previous thirty years. Sea Serpent is from the third state of three. For the first state,
Hayter engraved a copper plate and printed two proofs. The second state was
engraved further, covered with a plastic sheet from which shapes were cut and
the plate was deep bitten, two proofs were pulled. The third state was again
covered with plastic and soft-ground was added with textures impressed into the
ground. The plate was then bitten and proved, one proof was pulled. The edition
of 75 was begun by Hayter and his studio assistant, Hector Saunier, who printed
numbers 1 through 31, and the remainder of the edition was printed in 1979.
Stanley W. Hayter
was born in Hackney, England in 1901. After three years working as a chemist in
the oil fields of Iran, he enrolled in the Académie Julian in Paris in 1926.
There he met the engraver Joseph Hecht and began to merge chemistry with
printmaking. In 1927, Hayter founded Atelier 17, an experimental graphic arts workshop
in Paris that played a central role in the revival of the print as an
independent art form. European artists came to work with him and ideas flowed
freely. Hayter left Paris in late 1939 as war closed in on the city.
Hayter opened
Atelier 17 in 1940 in New York and the studio became a melting pot of European
artists who had fled the war and American artists, many who had worked in the
printmaking section of the WPA. The emphasis was on experimental color
printing, including the use of viscosity printing and offset color using
screenprint, stencil, and woodcut. Hayter returned to Paris in 1950 and reopened
Atelier 17, attracting many artists from Asia. He continued to experiment with
color printing, including the use of Flowmaster pens, incongruous and
fluorescent colors, and flowing, interwoven patterns. With an unrivaled
knowledge of the technicalities of printmaking, Hayter authored two major
books, New Ways of Gravure and
About Prints.
