5 Interesting Facts About Screen Printing

From Andy Warhol to World War II propaganda, find out five fun facts about the art of screen printing

If you look through your wardrobe, chances are you’ll find at least one item of clothing with a screen printed design. Or perhaps you’ve tried the technique at home to create a personalized T-shirt of your favorite band, or matching hats for your local sports team.

But do you know where this surprisingly ancient technique came from? Or how it officially turned into a form of fine art?

Find out in this video.

5 Interesting Facts About Screen Printing

1. A rather hairy past

Screen printing is an ancient practise that dates all the way back to the Song Dynasty in China. Artists would use screens made of a tightly-woven mesh of human hair, since it was both strong and fine enough to allow the dyes to pass through onto the substrate, while the stencils themselves were cut from leaves. The technique was then adapted by the Japanese, who began to use silk as a mesh, centuries before it even reached Europe. Since then, it has gone through many different changes and developments, and nowadays, screens are usually made from synthetic fibers such as polyester.

2. Stencilling techniques

Screen printing has come a long way since then, and many modern methods involve the use of highly sophisticated digital or chemical processes. The real revolutionary moment in the history of screen printing came at the beginning of the 20th century, when scientists and printers Roy Beck, Charles Peter, and Edward Owens experimented with chromic acid salt sensitised emulsions that reacted and hardened under light. For the first time, photo-imaged stencils could be used instead of stencils made from paper or card. If you're looking to try it out for yourself at home though, you can stick to the much simpler technique of cutting out your own stencils by hand.

3. The first ever promotional T-shirt

The Wizard of Oz is known for many things, from its lovable characters and enchanting settings to its catchy songs. But you may not know that it is also responsible for the first ever promotional T-shirt, which was made using… you guessed it! Screen printing. It was designed especially for the movie classic and given away to fans at the film’s premiere in 1939.

4. The key to WWII propaganda

Screen printing was used extensively during World War II to mass-produce posters, but printers would soon discover that the technique could be used on a variety of different substrates, leading them to screen print on military apparel, first aid kits, and even decals for aircrafts. It’s even said that some soldiers who were taught how to screen print later used their new-found skills to continue working in the screen printing business after the war.

5. Andy Warhol and the Pop Art movement

Perhaps the most recognized name associated with screen printing is artist Andy Warhol. He used the technique to create his famous celebrity prints, including Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, putting screen printing on the map and finally giving it the recognition it deserved as a form of fine art. He used a photographic silkscreen process which allowed him to create a more precise, defined, image, as well as mass-produce his prints with relative ease. In fact, this uniform result is precisely what drew him to the technique, saying “I think it would be so great if more people took up silk screens so that no one would know whether my picture was mine or somebody else’s.”

If you’re interested in customizing your clothing with your own unique designs and patterns using the screen printing technique, why not check out the Domestika course “Textile Silkscreen Printing with Stencil” with Mireia and Merce, founders of slow fashion brand Festela Store.

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