Born in the Appalachian region in 1930, Max Hayslette began his studies at the American Academy and completed them at the Art Institute of Chicago.  Here he worked closely with Alexander Archipenko and Egon Weiner.  He had his first one-person show at the age of sixteen.  Hayslette’s approach to painting results from over twenty years as both an industrial and interior designer. He founded Olympus Atelier in 1974.  He is considered a romantic artist, one who seeks to give his works a warm and gentle spiritual quality.

Having explored numerous artistic styles and images, it remains the creative process that is most important to Hayslette. “Some artists can just sit down and be happy with whatever happens. When I begin a painting or a print, I don’t leave many unanswered questions.”  Hayslette first makes a full-size pencil sketch on paper and even prepares color studies before he fully launches into a piece. “I take a design approach to creating my work and like most designers, I use a lot of paper first.”

Hayslette has spent most of his recent years journeying, sketchbook in hand, throughout Asia and the Mediterranean. His composed, elegant images frequently offer hints of his intrigue with Asia. With fine detail and restrained palette, Hayslette creates both abstract and representational images of the mountains and villages throughout Asia, that he has so enjoyed visiting. When he is not traveling, Hayslette works in a quiet, pagoda-style studio at his home in the northwestern United States.

Max Hayslette’s work has been widely exhibited and is represented in over three-hundred private and corporate collections housing Hayslette’s work include the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, Union Carbide, IBM, Stanford University, B.F. Goodrich, Wells Fargo National Bank of Los Angeles, United States Department of State, and the United States Embassy in Canberra, Australia.  His work has been honored in such exhibitions as Feragil Gallery in New York, the Art Institution of Chicago, the Seattle Art Museum, Art ’80 in Washington D.C., and Findlay Gallery in Chicago.  

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