Screen printing was widespread in the twentieth century, especially among American Pop Art artists.
One of the greatest interpreters is Andy Warhol, who reproduced the most widespread images of American consumer culture with this 1962 technique. In 1967 Andy Warhol designed a portfolio of 10 silkscreen prints with the portrait of Marilyn Monroe, taken from the posters of the film Niagara. The portfolio of 10 screen prints was then printed in an original edition of 250 copies.
All 250 prints of the original edition were signed, some with pencil and numbered on the back, others with pen, still others had only the initials. Apart from this edition, there were 26 author’s references signed and marked with a letter from A to Z. The first editions of Marilyn and Flowers were so successful that many hoped for a second edition of the prints.
In 1970, while Warhol was working with German and Belgian printers for his European exhibition, he was asked to reprint the Marilyn and Flowers portfolios for the European public. But the idea did not interest Warhol, who actually refused to participate in the European edition. However, the original screen prints were brought to Europe and the first unauthorised print was produced in slightly different colours than the originals. The edition of 250 unauthorised copies was printed with the inscriptions “Published by Sunday B. Morning” and “Fill with your own signature” on the back.
Andy Warhol, who knows the European prints and accepts them because they were printed and published by two of his good friends, decides to sign some prints with “This is not by me”.
Given the popularity of the first unauthorized edition, Sunday B. Morning continued to publish the prints of the original silkscreen prints. The later editions were published in their original colors, not numbered and stamped with blue instead of black ink to distinguish them from the first edition.
Andy Warhol has always been considered the father of Pop Art, the one who made possible the celebration of the useless, the superfluous. Thanks to him, the noble art of screen printing was celebrated all over the world. His success, his intuition, accompanied by one of the old techniques that are still used today, only to personalize advertising products. For this reason we can say that – Andy Warhol and screen printing – are words that are connected.