Introduction to the Atelier 17 database

History of Atelier 17’s roster lists

It is challenging to recover the exact composition of the studio’s membership over its sixty-one years.

Joann Moser assembled the first list—709 names—for her dissertation, which became an exhibition catalogue for the workshop’s fiftieth anniversary.¹ From 2003, J. Michael Armentrout hosted Moser’s list with some additions on www.atelier17.com. Christina Weyl’s book about the women who were at Atelier 17 between 1940 and 1955 provided an appendix encompassing forty-six newly identified members.²

There are no comprehensive lists for the studio’s prewar years and its New York period. Peter Grippe maintained a ledger book when he was director of the New York studio (1952–1954).³

In 2023, The Atelier 17 Project became aware of a significant new resource: an account book in Hayter’s papers at Tate Archive.⁴ Its pages record the fees that individuals paid to access the workshop between 1951 and 1988 and, as such, offer an unprecedented snapshot of the postwar workshop.⁵

Yet it is an imperfect and challenging document: Hayter’s handwriting is difficult to decipher; he typically noted only artists’ surnames, adding first names or initials in cases of married couples or if two artists shared surnames; and often he spelled phonetically or inconsistently across the years. Furthermore, artists who came to Atelier 17 via grants from the French government usually do not appear by name; instead, their presence is captured in a lump sum the government paid to Atelier 17 for all boursiers, or scholarship holders. The anonymity of the boursiers is particularly problematic when accounting for artists from nations in East and Southeast Asia.

With the help of research assistants, former workshop members, and other dedicated colleagues, The Atelier 17 Project transcribed the names in the account book.⁶ Through crowdsourcing and further analysis from Anthropic’s Claude, we identified approximately 1000 artists not previously noted on Atelier 17’s postwar roster. We have positive matches for just over 500 and added the balance only by their surnames.

For Atelier 17’s centennial, The Atelier 17 Project merged all lists (Moser, Armentrout, Weyl, Grippe ledger, Tate Archive account book) and migrated the data to Airtable.⁷ This database includes names added through archival research in exhibition catalogues, artists’ papers, newspaper clippings, and direct contact from artists or their families. Several generous colleagues contributed their knowledge by enriching this dataset and filling in missing details.⁸

The new database is a work in progress that will grow and change as more information becomes available. The roster currently stands at 2,082 names. Readers who can identify an artist, correct a name, or supply a missing detail are warmly invited to get in touch.