Warriors (Guerriers)

 

Stanley William Hayter

  1901 - 1988 (biography)

1953  

color engraving, soft-ground etching and scorper 

18 3/4 x 13 3/16" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

edition 200 

titled and dated in pencil 

Black & Moorhead 211 illustrated in color 

Johannot 

iv/iv 

George Braziller, NY 

11240 

$2,800.00 

"Warriors" was done in New York in 1953 and was published by George Brazilier in an edition of 200. The tension of the human form interested Hayter throughout his early career. He wrote: "Particularly in engraving, which is essentially the art of the line, of the line in three-dimensional space, it became necessary to exploit the enormous possibilities of indicating the properties of matter, force, motion, and space." The surrreal composition is a synthesis of his work in New York as he moved more and more to color and experimentation with different intaglio methods. "Warriors" includes gestural engraving but adds soft-ground etching into which was impressed delicate fabrics that create subtle patterns and directions. Hayter used a scorper to gouge the plate, the result being highlighted, three dimensional white areas where nothing printed. The color was applied using stencils and rollers. The plate, plus the set of drawings, stencils and states are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.