![Stanley William Hayter, ‘Big Horse (Black & Moorhead 46)’, 1932, Print, Engraving & Drypoint on antique white Canson Vidalon laid paper, Alpha 137 Gallery](http://web.archive.org./web/20210420195647im_/https://d32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net/5iiMwXUB6jF_RLhm6oVDxg/large.jpg)
Stanley William Hayter
Big Horse (Black & Moorhead 46), 1932
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20210420195647im_/https://d32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net/n21VrbfpJCN9EcpCrEZ-nQ/square140.png)
Stanley H.W. Hayter was one of the most important and influential printmakers of the 20th century. …
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20210420195647im_/https://d7hftxdivxxvm.cloudfront.net/?resize_to=fill&width=100&height=100&quality=80&src=https%3A%2F%2Fd32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net%2FVcTy-vbfJyzC8FxgiBrEwQ%2Flarge.jpg)
Stanley William Hayter is legendary for his technical innovations in printmaking. Initially, he experimented with adapting traditional black-and-white etching and engraving techniques to modern art aesthetics. Introduced to Surrealism in Paris through Yves Tanguy and André Masson, Hayter became associated with the movement, creating works such as Combat (1936), which depicts “a violent encounter of combatants, with leaping horses and a plethora of weapons,” as he described; Hayter drew its violent imagery from the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Fascism. During WWII, as a member of the avant-garde living in exile in New York, his style moved toward Abstract Expressionism and, along with his theoretical writings on Automatism, would influence Jackson Pollock and other American artists. This period coincided with his perfection of a revolutionary technique for multicolor printing on a single plate.
![Stanley William Hayter, ‘Big Horse (Black & Moorhead 46)’, 1932, Print, Engraving & Drypoint on antique white Canson Vidalon laid paper, Alpha 137 Gallery](http://web.archive.org./web/20210420195647im_/https://d32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net/5iiMwXUB6jF_RLhm6oVDxg/large.jpg)
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20210420195647im_/https://d32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net/n21VrbfpJCN9EcpCrEZ-nQ/square140.png)
Stanley H.W. Hayter was one of the most important and influential printmakers of the 20th century. This is one of the most coveted early Hayter etchings, done in Paris before World War II, in a small edition of only 30, many of which have been lost. In the foreword to the catalogue that accompanied an early Hayter …
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20210420195647im_/https://d7hftxdivxxvm.cloudfront.net/?resize_to=fill&width=100&height=100&quality=80&src=https%3A%2F%2Fd32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net%2FVcTy-vbfJyzC8FxgiBrEwQ%2Flarge.jpg)
Stanley William Hayter is legendary for his technical innovations in printmaking. Initially, he experimented with adapting traditional black-and-white etching and engraving techniques to modern art aesthetics. Introduced to Surrealism in Paris through Yves Tanguy and André Masson, Hayter became associated with the movement, creating works such as Combat (1936), which depicts “a violent encounter of combatants, with leaping horses and a plethora of weapons,” as he described; Hayter drew its violent imagery from the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Fascism. During WWII, as a member of the avant-garde living in exile in New York, his style moved toward Abstract Expressionism and, along with his theoretical writings on Automatism, would influence Jackson Pollock and other American artists. This period coincided with his perfection of a revolutionary technique for multicolor printing on a single plate.