Michael Hasted
Born
Bristol, England
Occupation(s)Artist, theatre writer and director, photographer

Michael Hasted (born 1945) is a British artist, writer and director for the theatre and photographer.

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, than on his studies. Unable to accept the place he had been offered at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School 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, Penelope Keith, James Bolam and John Savident. He was in the controversial You'll Come to Love Your Sperm Test by (and with) John Antrobus at the Traverse Theatre[1] in Edinburgh in 1964. He also appeared in Z CARS[2] on BBC TV.

Music career

He became involved in the music business in the mid 60s and was part of the Les Cousins in London's Soho where he designed their daily event poster and occasionally performed. He collaborated with Cat Stevens on a couple of songs, had a demo produced by Al Stewart and was backing singer on a couple of tracks of a Jeff Lynne[3] 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 etc. etc. and did sleeves for The Groundhogs "Scratchin the Surface",[4] Mike Batt "Schizophonia" and classical guitarist John Williams "The Height Below".[5]

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.[6]

In the mid-1980s, he went to live in France and from 1996 until his return to England in 2003, ran The English Bookshop[7] in Montolieu, the book village in the south of France. He now works as a writer and theatre director, journalist and photographer and runs the on-line theatre magazine StageTalk Magazine. In 2011 he wrote a history of the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham[8][9] 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[10][11] at the Everyman starring Tweedy the Clown and Mark Hyde.

His book THESPIANS,[12] actors' reminiscences of the 1940s to the 1970s with a foreword by Penelope Keith was published in December 2014.

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, 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

  1. ↑ "The cast of 'You'll Come to Love Your Sperm Test' at the Traverse".
  2. ↑ "One Good Turn". IMDb.
  3. ↑ "Mr Blue Sky: The Story of Jeff Lynne & ELO (TV Movie 2012) – IMDb". IMDb.
  4. ↑ Hoggin' the Page by Martyn Hanson. Northdown Publishing 2005 pp 46–51
  5. ↑ "John Williams – The Height Below (Vinyl) – Discogs". Discogs. 24 September 1973.
  6. ↑ Hasted, Michael (1980). "On His Work as an Independent Surrealist Painter". Leonardo. 13 (3): 186–191. doi:10.2307/1577815. JSTOR 1577815. S2CID 191369892.
  7. ↑ "Europe's Book Towns". transitionsabroad.com. Archived from the original on 7 October 2008. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  8. ↑ A THEATRE FOR ALL SEASONS by Michael Hasted, Jeremy Mills Publishing Ltd., England. September 2011
  9. ↑ https://www.waterstones.com/author/michael-hasted/296868
  10. ↑ "Theatre review: The Dock Brief". 15 October 2014.
  11. ↑ "THE DOCK BRIEF at the Everyman Studio, Cheltenham". 15 October 2014.
  12. ↑ FeedARead, December 2014
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