History
Screen printing has its origins in simple stencilling, most notably of the Japanese form (katazome), used on textiles, mostly for clothing. This was taken up in France. The modern screen printing process originated from patents taken out by Samuel Simon in the early 1900s in England. This idea was then adopted in San Francisco, California, by John Pilsworth in 1914 who used screen printing to form multicolor prints in much the same manner as screen printing is done today.
Screen printing took off during the First World War as an industrial process for printing flags and banners. The use of photographic stencils at this time made the process more versatile and encouraged widespread use. |