Sue Fuller created the semi-abstract soft-ground etching and engraving, Hen, in 1945, while working at Stanley William Hayter’s experimental print workshop, Atelier 17, which had temporarily relocated to New York City from Paris with the onset of war in Europe in 1940. Despite its humble subject, Fuller’s intaglio print is notable for its innovative use of texture and pattern, a visual effect Fuller achieved by transferring a collaged design she had created from an altered Victorian lace collar to a prepared soft-ground etching plate. In 1946, Hen won top honors at the Graphic Arts Show in New York, which led directly to Fuller’s first solo exhibition the following year. The exhibition presented nearly thirty prints Fuller had produced at Atelier 17, a selection that showcased her impressive technical and pictorial innovations in avant-garde printmaking at a time when the work of women printmakers was too often marginalized by the art establishment.
