From 1927 until its closing in 1988, the Atelier 17 print workshop, founded by Stanley Wiliam Hayter, introduced new ideas, fresh imagery, and radical experimentation to age-old intaglio printmaking techniques of engraving, etching, and drypoint. Initially, during its first period in Paris, from 1927 to 1939, the workshop attracted Surrealists such as Joan Miro and Yves Tanguy, among others. Then, relocating to New York from 1940 to 1950, Atelier 17 worked with Jackson Pollock, Louise Nevelson, Robert Motherwell, and other artists associated with gestural abstraction, affecting their painting practice. On its return to Paris in the 1950s, it became a locus for a new generation of avant-garde artists from Asia and beyond, all of whom shared Hayter’s reverence for the graphic arts and eagerness to be in the printmaking vanguard.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of Atelier 17, the present selection of works on paper includes prints by Hayter and artists who were profoundly influenced by this celebrated and consequential center for creative printmaking.

A Series of Irrational Consequences: Atelier 17 at 100 is organized by Akemi May, associate curator of works on paper.