Drawn from the collection of Tyrus Clutter, Greater than 17, is composed of artists who work(ed) in printmaking, influenced by the techniques of British painter and printmaker Stanley William Hayter.

Hayter began his printmaking career working with the engraved line. His technique was based in Surrealism and he was affiliated with the artists of that movement for a time. He became increasingly influential among European Modernists when he opened his renonwed workshop--Atelier 17--in Paris in 1927. The workshop moved to New York during the war, but again returned to Paris in 1950. Between Paris and New York, the workshop was filled with some of the greatest names of 20th century art: Miro, Calder, Lipchitz, Picasso, Stuart Davis, David Smith, Motherwell, Nevelson, Pollock, Rothko, and de Kooning.

Many of the over one hundred sixty works in this exhibition are produced with the Color Viscosity Intaglio printing process which was developed at Hayter's Atelier 17 in the late 1950s. Earlier attempts had been made to print color etchings from a single plate, using stencils, but this was the breakthrough development of the workshop. Nearly all of the artists included in this core segment of the collection worked at Atelier 17 with Hayter, or at least visited or met him at some point. Artists such as Krishna Reddy and Hector Saunier were also responsible for printing several of Hayter's intaglio editions.

The works reveal the importance of Hayter, and other artists like Mauricio Lasansky, in the development of printmaking in the middle of the 20th century. Evident are aspects of abstraction connected to the automatism of Surrealism, as well as some representational imagery with mythic and religious overtones---particularly in the work of Dick Swift.

Represented are artists from the U.S. and Europe, but also some originally from South America, Scandinavia, Australia, and Asia. This shows the open, international flavor of Atelier 17, as does the inclusion of over twenty female artists. The diversity of Atelier 17 was exceptional and predates the feminist movement, proper, in the U.S.

Also included are some photographs of Hayter and Helen Phillips and an engraving plate by Phillips. These are listed in the printed catalogue that can also be viewed in this PDF. The sizes included represent the sizes of the images, not framed sizes. The exhibit opened at the Webber Gallery of the College of Central Florida in the fall of 2021 (see installation shots here); it will be at the Leepa-Rattner Museum in 2022. Professor Clutter is also considering other venues for the exhibition. To inquire about the exhibit and for more details contact tyrus@tyrusclutter.com .