Screenprinting is a form of stenciling, a common procedure used to apply words or images to paper and other materials, including signs.  During the 1930s, a number of American artists began making artworks in screenprint, and by the end of that decade the term "serigraph" was devised to distinguish artists' screenprints from commercial examples.  During the 1960s, screenprinting came into greater prominence, particularly due to the Pop artists, who were attracted to its bold areas of unmodulated color, its flat surfaces, and its generally "commercial" look.  Andy Warhol used this printmaking technique even when he was creating images on canvas.

For screenprints, mesh (originally silk) is stretched tautly across a frame.  An image is glued or otherwise affixed onto the mesh to mask out compositional areas.  This image can be created from a variety of materials: cut paper, a hardening form of glue, or a special gelatin (for photographic imagery).  Unlike procedures for the techniques of woodcut, etching, or lithography, no printing press is required to transfer this image from screen to paper.  Rather, paper is placed directly beneath the screen, and a tool with a flat rubber edge, called a squeegee, is used to push ink through the mesh.  Areas masked out by compositional shapes are nonporous and obstruct the ink, reading as white shapes after printing. When more than one color is needed, separate screens are used for each color.