Screen printing in the context of "Ink"

A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional graphics, i.e. produced on a flat surface, today normally paper or a screen on various electronic devices. The term usually refers to the arts that rely more on line, color or tone, especially drawing and the various forms of engraving; it is sometimes understood to refer specifically to drawing and the various printmaking processes, such as line engraving, aquatint, drypoint, etching, mezzotint, monotype, lithography, and screen printing (silk-screen, serigraphy). Graphic art mostly includes calligraphy, photography, painting, typography, computer graphics, and bindery. It also encompasses drawn plans and layouts for interior and architectural designs.

In museum parlance "works on paper" is a common term, covering the various types of traditional fine art graphic art. There is now a large sector of graphic designers working mostly on web design.

Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique, rather than a photographic reproduction of a visual artwork which would be printed using an electronic machine (a printer); however, there is some cross-over between traditional and digital printmaking, including risograph.

Prints are created by transferring ink from a matrix to a sheet of paper or other material, by a variety of techniques. Common types of matrices include: metal plates for engraving, etching and related intaglio printing techniques; stone, aluminum, or polymer for lithography; blocks of wood for woodcuts and wood engravings; and linoleum for linocuts. Screens made of silk or synthetic fabrics are used for the screen printing process. Other types of matrix substrates and related processes are discussed below.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of architecture and design, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, prints, illustrated and artist's books, film, as well as electronic media.

The institution was conceived in 1929 by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan. Initially located in the Heckscher Building on Fifth Avenue, it opened just days after the Wall Street Crash. The museum was led by A. Conger Goodyear as president and Abby Rockefeller as treasurer, with Alfred H. Barr Jr. as its first director. Under Barr's leadership, the museum's collection rapidly expanded, beginning with an inaugural exhibition of works by European modernists. Despite financial challenges, including opposition from John D. Rockefeller Jr., the museum moved to several temporary locations in its early years, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. eventually donated the land for its permanent site. In 1939, the museum moved to its current location on West 53rd Street designed by architects Philip L. Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone. A new sculpture garden, designed by Barr and curator John McAndrew, also opened that year.

Printing emerged as early as the 4th millennium BCE in the form of cylinder seals used by the Proto-Elamite and Sumerian civilizations to certify documents written on clay tablets. Other early forms include block seals, hammered coinage, pottery imprints, and cloth printing. Initially a method of printing patterns on cloth such as silk, woodblock printing for texts on paper originated in Tang China by the 7th century, to the spread of book production and woodblock printing in other parts of Asia such as Korea and Japan. The Chinese Buddhist Diamond Sutra, printed by woodblock on 11 May 868, is the earliest known printed book with a precise publishing date. Movable type was invented in China during the 11th century by the Song dynasty artisan Bi Sheng, but it received limited use compared to woodblock printing. However, the use of copper movable types was documented in a Song-era book from 1193, and the earliest printed paper money using movable metal type to print the identifying codes were made in 1161. The technology also spread outside China, with the oldest extant printed book using metal movable type being the Jikji, printed in Korea in 1377 during the Goryeo era.

Woodblock printing was also used in Europe until the mid-15th century. Late medieval German inventor Johannes Gutenberg created the first printing press based on previously known mechanical presses and a process for mass-producing metal type. By the end of the 15th century, his invention and widescale circulation of the Gutenberg Bible became responsible for a burgeoning economical book publishing industry spreading globally across Renaissance Europe and eventually among the colonial publishers and printers that emerged in the British American colonies. This industry enabled the communication of ideas and the sharing of knowledge on an unprecedented scale, leading to the global spread of the printing press during the early modern period. Alongside the development of text printing, new and lower-cost methods of image reproduction were developed, including lithography, screen printing and photocopying.

Andy Warhol (/ˈwɔːrhɒl/ ; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist, filmmaker, and impresario. Drawing on imagery from advertising, mass media, and celebrity culture, he transformed everyday consumer goods and familiar icons—such as Campbell's soup cans, Marilyn Monroe, and Brillo Pad boxes—into renowned artworks, establishing himself as a leading figure in the pop art movement. Warhol is widely regarded as the most important American artist of the second half of the 20th century.

Born to working-class Rusyn immigrant parents in Pittsburgh, Warhol began his career as a successful commercial illustrator in New York before turning to fine art, where his embrace of mechanical reproduction, silkscreen printing, and serial repetition challenged traditional boundaries between high and low culture. His studio, the Factory, became a hub for avant-garde experimentation, bringing together drag queens, poets, bohemians, musicians, and wealthy patrons. He directed numerous underground films—such as Chelsea Girls (1966), Lonesome Cowboys (1968), and Blue Movie (1969)—featuring a shifting group of personalities known as Warhol superstars, and he is often credited with popularizing the expression "15 minutes of fame." Warhol also managed the influential rock band the Velvet Underground, who performed at his multimedia happenings, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67). He expressed his queer identity through many of his artworks and films at a time when homosexuality in the United States was heavily stigmatized and legally constrained.