Career
He spent the years from 1922 to 1925 in Persia as an oil chemist and geologist, painting in his spare time.
In 1926 he went to Paris, where, after a brief association with the Académie Julian, he opened his own studio in 1927.
Artists interested in techniques of printmaking worked at Hayter's studio at 17 rue Campagne première,premiere, which gave its name to the group: Atelier Dix-sept. Atelier Dix-sept included at one time or another Pablo Picasso, Vasily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Max Ernst, Joan Miró,Miro, Yves Tanguy, and Alexander Calder.
Hayter remained in Paris until the outbreak of World War II in 1939.
By 1940 he had arrived in New York; there Atelier Dix-sept was reestablished at the New School for Social Research, where Hayter taught. The workshop became a focal meeting point for French and American artists and a spur to the new movement known as abstract expressionism.