Michael Hasted (born 1945) is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short sto ...

, director for the

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a Stage (theatre), stage. The performe ...

, and

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...

Early life

Michael Hasted was expelled from school at the age of 16 for spending more time backstage at his local repertory theatre, The Everyman in

Cheltenham Cheltenham () is a historic spa town and borough adjacent to the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716, and claims to be the mo ...

, than on his studies. Unable to accept the place he had been offered at the

Bristol Old Vic Theatre School The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (BOVTS) is a drama school in Bristol, England. The institution provides training in acting and production for careers in film, television and theatre. BOVTS was an affiliate of the Conservatoire for Dance a ...

because he was too young to receive a grant, he spent the next few years working in rep all over Great Britain, notably The Everyman, Theatre Royal Lincoln, Queens Theatre, Horncurch and The Dundee Rep. He appeared in various productions with

Steven Berkoff Steven Berkoff (born Leslie Steven Berks; 3 August 1937) is an English actor, author, playwright, theatre practitioner and theatre director. As a theatre maker he is recognised for staging work with a heightened performance style known as "Be ...

Penelope Keith Dame Penelope Anne Constance Keith (''née'' Hatfield; born 2 April 1940) is an English actress and presenter, active in film, radio, stage and television and primarily known for her roles in the British sitcoms '' The Good Life'' and '' To the ...

James Bolam James Christopher Bolam (born 16 June 1935) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Terry Collier in '' The Likely Lads'' and its sequel ''Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?'', Jack Ford in ''When the Boat Comes In'', Roy Fig ...

and

John Savident John Frederick Joseph Savident (21 January 1938 – 21 February 2024) was a British actor, known for his numerous television roles, including his portrayal of Fred Elliott in the soap opera ''Coronation Street'' from 1994 to 2006. He was also ...

. He was in the controversial ''You'll Come to Love Your Sperm Test'' by (and with)

John Antrobus John Arthur Antrobus (born 2 July 1933) is an English playwright and screenwriter. He has written extensively for stage, screen, TV and radio, including the epic World War II play, ''Crete and Sergeant Pepper'' at the Royal Court. He authored t ...

at the

Traverse Theatre The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded as The Traverse Theatre Club in 1962 by John Calder, John Malcolm, Jim Haynes, Richard Demarco, Terry Lane, Andrew Muir, John Martin and Sheila Colvin. The Traverse Th ...

in Edinburgh in 1964. He also appeared in ''Z CARS'' on BBC TV.

Music career

He became involved in the music business in the mid 60s and was one of the in-crowd at '' Les Cousins'' in London's Soho from 1965-1968 and supplied some of the decor. In April 1966 he hosted a solo gig by Van Morrison there. He also designed their daily event poster and occasionally performed. He collaborated with Cat Stevens on a couple of songs which were not recorded or published, had a demo produced by Al Stewart and was backing singer on a couple of tracks of a

Jeff Lynne Jeffrey Lynne (born 30 December 1947) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and record producer. He is the co-founder and, latterly, sole member of the rock band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) which was formed in 1970. He has written all of ...

album.

Artistic career

He continued working in the record industry as a photographer and sleeve designer photographing Hawkwind, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ravi Shankar, Tiny Tim, Canned Heat, Free, Robert Palmer and did sleeves for

The Groundhogs The Groundhogs were an English blues and rock band founded in late 1963 in London. Named after John Lee Hooker's song "Ground Hog Blues", they were part of the burgeoning British rhythm and blues scene, backing Hooker on his album '' ...And Se ...

" Scratchin the Surface",

Mike Batt Michael Philip Batt (born 6 February 1949) is an English singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, record producer, director, and conductor. He served as the Deputy Chairman of the British Phonographic Industry. Batt created the novelty pop band T ...

Schizophonia Schizophonia is a term coined by R. Murray Schafer to describe the splitting of an original sound and its electroacoustic reproduction. This concept comes from the invention of electroacoustic equipment for the transmission of sound, which meant ...

'' and classical guitarist

John Williams John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (November 15, 2022)Classic Connection review, ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who w ...

"The Height Below". In the early 1970s, he also took up illustration and painting. He produced book jackets and magazine illustrations including for ''Playboy'' with whom he worked for 20 years. His paintings have been exhibited in Europe, Japan and America and are in public collections in England, France, Greece and the United States. In the mid-1980s, he went to live in France and from 1996 until his return to England in 2003, ran ''The English Bookshop'' in Montolieu, the book village in the south of France. He now works as a writer and theatre director, journalist and photographer. In 2011 he wrote a history of the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham and wrote, produced and directed a revue in the theatre's Studio – 'Final Daze', featuring Robert Whelan, Wendy Abrahams and Steven Rayworth. In October 2014, he produced and directed John Mortimer's play The Dock Brief at the Everyman starring Tweedy the Clown and Mark Hyde. Also in 2014 He created the on-line theatre magazine StageTalk Magazine. His book ''THESPIANS'', actors' reminiscences of the 1940s to the 1970s with a foreword by

was published in December 2014. Since 2017 he has lived in Holland where he created ArtsTalk Magazine.https://artstalkmagazine.nl/

Public collections owning pictorial works

* Arkansas Arts Centre Foundation, Little Rock, Arkansas, US * Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan, US * Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece *

Westmoreland Museum of American Art The Westmoreland Museum of American Art is an art museum in Greensburg, Pennsylvania devoted to American art, with a particular concentration on the art of southwestern Pennsylvania. Art lover and Greensburg resident Mary Marchand Woods hand dow ...

, Greensburg, PA, US * Museé d'Art Moderne, Strasbourg, France * Polaroid (UK) Ltd.,

Selected bibliography

* ''THESPIANS'' by Michael Hasted, FeedARead, December 2014 * ''A THEATRE FOR ALL SEASONS'' by Michael Hasted, Jeremy Mills Publishing Ltd., England. September 2011 * ''The Cheltenham Book of Days'' by Michael Hasted. The History Press, England. March 2013 * ''Novum'' Gebrauchsgraphik (Munich) November 1973 pp. 28–33 * ''Munchner Merkur'' (Munich) 19 December 1975 * ''Graphis'' (Zürich) Spring 1978 p. 539 * ''Stern'' (Hamburg) 30 November 1978 p. 162 * ''Novum'' Gebrauchsgraphik (Munich) April 1979 pp. 41–50 * ''Munchner Merkur'' (Munich) 11 April 1979 p. 9 * ''Graphik'' (Munich) August 1979 pp. 24–25 * ''Leonardo'' (Paris) Summer 1980 pp. 186–191 * ''Graphis'' Annual 83/84 (Zürich) p. 222 * ''ART SYNECTICS'' by Nicholas Roukes. Davis Publications Inc. 1984 p. 26 * ''Novum'' Gebrauchsgraphik January 1993 pp. 44–47 * ''Hoggin' the Page '' by Martyn Hanson. Northdown Publishing 2005 pp 46–51 * ''Front Cover '' by Allan Powers, Mitchell Beazley 2006 p. 97

References

External links

* http://everymanbook.com * https://web.archive.org/web/20090209080231/http://kevinwalsh.co.uk/francebooks.htm * http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/instInfo/inst/12946/lang/1 * https://artfacts.net/artist/michael-hasted/179062 * https://web.archive.org/web/20081007194310/http://transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/0203/booktowns.shtml
The Times
* http://www.zdom.com/artistpainterpricesH8/HASTEDMichael.htm * https://web.archive.org/web/20101005063245/http://epilog.de/Bibliothek/Alien-Contact/Beitrag/AC28_Gesicht_der_Buecher.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Hasted, Michael 20th-century British painters British male painters 21st-century British painters British illustrators Photographers from Gloucestershire 1945 births Living people 20th-century British male artists 21st-century British male artists