The history behind why Urban Art uses screen printing to showcase spectacular work

Screen printing is an ancient art form. An early version of the technique was first pioneered in China, around AD 950, as a method of printing patterns onto fabric. Several centuries later, Japanese artisans adopted the practice to transfer designs onto paper and fabric, using a stiff brush to push ink through a mesh screen woven from human hair.

Screen printing arrived in Europe in the 18th century, but it was slow to catch on as a fabric printing method owing to the high cost of silk mesh at the time. Once the Silk Road made imported silk more affordable, screen printing gradually became a popular — and profitable — way to print fabric. By the early 20th century, printers had developed photo-sensitised emulsions, allowing artisans to create complex stencil designs much more easily.

In the 1930s, artists began experimenting with screen printing as an artistic medium, naming their new-found form 'serigraphy' to distinguish it from industrial printing. By the 1960s, artists such as Eduardo Paolozzi and Andy Warhol were using screen printing to create fine art. Dubbed 'pop-art', the artist used screen-printing to create multiple copies of a single image, essentially questioning what constituted fine art. Warhol's famous Marilyn Diptych is perhaps the best-known example of screen printing as an artistic form.

Nowadays, screen printing is used both as an artistic medium and as a commercial printing process. One stencil can be used to reproduce the same design hundreds — or even thousands — of times, so it’s a brilliant technique for producing large orders of Urban Art at it’s best.

To learn more about the work we do for Urban Artists contact us here at Speedscreen.