In 1934, the 18-year-old Hungarian art student Gabor Peterdi began to frequent the Parisian experimental workshop known as Atelier 17, founded by English expatriate Stanley William Hayter.

“The greatest strength of the old Atelier 17 lay in Hayter’s success in combining his teaching the experimental attitude with the discipline of the craft. He revived and revitalized line engraving with a missionary zeal. This was in fact my main point of contact with him. At that time I was deeply involved with drawing, to the point of obsession. I felt that engraving, with its precision and finality, had been invented for me.”

Gabor Peterdi, 1961