French décollagist, photographer and sculptor. He began taking photographs in 1944 and in the following year, while studying sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, met the French artist Jacques de la Villeglé (b 1926) with whom he worked collaboratively from 1950 to 1953. In 1949 Hains produced his first pictures using the technique of DÉCOLLAGE, ripping off the successive layers of posters found on city walls (for illustration see NOUVEAU RÉALISME). Although the emphasis in these works is often on abstract qualities of texture and colour, he had a particular eye for fragments of text and for their political implications, as in Peace in Algeria (375*325 mm, 1956; Paris, Ginette Dufrêne priv. col., see 1986 exh. cat., p. 151). These works were first shown in 1957 alongside those of de la Villeglé, in an exhibition, Loi du 29 juillet 1881 (Paris, Gal. Colette Allendy), named after the law banning the display of posters; they led to his becoming one of the founder members of NOUVEAU RÉALISME in 1960. He died in Paris in October 2005.