Atelier 17: New Perspectives on an International Workshop of Modernist Printmaking

A multi-author publication celebrating the centennial of Atelier 17, the avant-garde printmaking studio, and spotlighting its overlooked artists, international networks, and global influence

Atelier 17 was a revolutionary printmaking workshop that shaped the direction of modernism and the graphic arts across its 61-year history between 1927 and 1988 with studio locations in Paris and New York City. Founded by Stanley William Hayter (1901-1988), the workshop was a vital center of intellectual and artistic exchange for Surrealist artists in interwar Paris and for the exploration of abstraction and other modernist modes after World War II. While icons like Joan Miró, Max Ernst, and Jackson Pollock are synonymous with the studio’s fame, its true impact lay in a radical inclusivity that drew in thousands of artists from across the globe. Together, they transformed printmaking from a reproductive craft into a primary modernist experiment.

Published to celebrate the centennial of the founding of the influential avant-garde printmaking workshop, the collection of thirteen essays explores how Atelier 17 did not just reflect modernism—it actively shaped its trajectory and its spread across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Moving beyond the traditional canon, editors James Chadwick, Ann Shafer, and Christina Weyl bring together an international roster of scholars to uncover the hidden networks, cross-cultural exchanges, and gender dynamics that fueled the studio’s sixty-one-year legacy and its major technical innovations.

Atelier 17 at 100 is a vital reclamation of the studio’s identity as a collaborative and truly international ecosystem. It positions printmaking not as a tool for reproduction, but as a pathway of intellectual discovery that forever altered the course of art history.

"The Anglo-American Origins of Atelier 17"
James Chadwick and Christina Weyl

"The Hungarian Artists at Atelier 17 in Interwar Paris"
Júlia Cserba

"Networks of Proximity: Atelier 17, Surrealism, and the Interwar Parisian Art Market"
Alice Ensabella

"Printmaking on the Popular Front: Langston Hughes, Dalla Husband, and the Spanish Civil War"
Evelyn Scaramella

"Impressions in Plaster: Plaster Printing at Atelier 17"
Emily Wolfson Jenne, Lucia Elledge, and Lisa Conte

"New Directions in Gravure: Atelier 17 in Santiago de Chile, 1947"
Álvaro A. Cárdenas Castro and Mónica R. Ravelo García

"Atelier 17, Mauricio Lasansky, and the Winnipeg School of Art"
Oliver A. I. Botar

"Parallel Ateliers: Hayter, Friedlaender, and the Renewal of Engraving in Postwar Paris"
Eléa Sicre

"Espace vibrant: Nina Negri’s Contributions to Color Printmaking at Atelier 17"
Christa Story

"Two Forms in One: Krishna Reddy and Shirley Witebsky at Atelier 17"
Simone Wille

“'Authentically Mine': Ana María Moncalvo and Modernist Printmaking in Buenos Aires"
Lucía Laumann

"Zarina at Atelier 17: The Printshop as Passport"
Sarah Burney

"Japanese Artists in Postwar Paris: Hasegawa Shōichi and Kihara Yasuyuki at Atelier 17"
Erwan Durozoi