The National Serigraph Society was founded in 1940 by a group of artists involved in the WPA

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administr ...

, including

Anthony Velonis Anthony or Antony is a masculine given name, derived from the '' Antonii'', a ''gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descendants of Ant ...

, Max Arthur Cohn, and

Hyman Warsager Hyman J. Warsager (1909–1974) was an American artist known for his printmaking. Biography Warsager was born in 1909 in New York City. He attended the Pratt Institute, the Grand Central School of Art, and the American Artists School. He worke ...

. The creation of the society coincided with the rise of

serigraph Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh ...

s being used as a medium for fine art. Originally called the ''Silk Screen Group'', the name was soon changed to the ''National Serigraph Society''. The National Serigraph Society had its own gallery, the ''Serigraph Gallery'' at 38 West 57th Street in New York City. They published a quarterly newsletter called the "Serigraph Quarterly." The Society had lectures, published prints, and coordinated traveling shows. In "The Complete Printmaker: Techniques, Traditions, Innovations", the authors wrote that this organization, by 1940, had an active program of "traveling exhibits, lectures, and portfolios of prints (that) helped to sustain and broaden interest in the serigraph. Artists such as

Ben Shahn Ben Shahn (September 12, 1898 – March 14, 1969) was an American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as ''The Shape of Content''. Biography Shahn was born ...

Mervin Jules Mervin Jules (1912–1994) was an American artist known for his silk screen prints. Biography Jules was born in 1912 in Baltimore, Maryland. He contracted polio as a child which damaged his legs. He used canes and braces for the rest of his li ...

Ruth Gikow Ruth Gikow (; January 6, 1915 - April 2, 1982) was an American visual artist known primarily for her work as a genre painter. Her paintings often depict human figures interacting with an urban environment. Early life Ruth Gikow was born on Jan ...

, Edward Landon, and Hyman Warsager were intrigued by the medium". In their 1970 book “Silk-Screen Printing for Artists & Craftsmen”, Mathilda V. and James A. Schwalbach wrote that a “major force in the development of serigraphy as a fine art was the formation in 1940 of the National Serigraph Society. It has set standards of excellence and has sent hundreds of exhibitions of its members’ work to countries all over the world. These exhibitions are responsible for a good deal of museum interest in the purchase of original prints as part of museum collections”. J.I. Biegeleisen and Max Arthur Cohn (a co-founder of the Society noted above), writing in 1942 about the origin and development of serigraphy, observed: "Specially noteworthy has been the work of the National Serigraph Society, New York, which has been the source of inspiration, clearing house, and temple of artists and print makers everywhere. The National Serigraph Society and its active director,

Doris Meltzer Doris Meltzer (1908-1977) was an American artist and art dealer. Biography Meltzer was born in 1908 in Ulster County, New York. She attended the Art Students League of New York. Meltzer was a member of the American Federation of Arts and, for ...

, have been largely responsible for promoting this new print form and raising it to the level of a museum art form"..

Dallas Museum of Art Exhibits

In 1944, 1947, and 1951 the

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...

held exhibitions of the National Serigraph Society. The artists listed in the checklists for these shows include: * Adolf Aldrich * Virginia (Vae) Barnes * Charles Barrows * B. Berkman-Hunter * Sarah Berman * George Beyer * Joseph Biel (1891-1943) * Morris Blackburn * Dorr Bothwell * William Boughton * Louis Bunce *

Ruth Chaney Ruth Chaney (1908-1973) was an American artist known for her printmaking. Biography Chaney was born in 1908 in Kansas City, Missouri. She created serigraphs for the Work Projects Administration (WPA) in its Federal Art Project. Chaney led a su ...

* Max Arthur Cohn * Marion Cunningham * Frank Davidson *

Roy DeCarava Roy Rudolph DeCarava (December 9, 1919 – October 27, 2009) was an American artist. DeCarava received early critical acclaim for his photography, initially engaging and imaging the lives of African Americans and jazz musicians in the communi ...

* James Egleson * Ray Euffa * Francine Felsenthal * Harold Fiedler *

Richard Floethe Richard Floethe (1901–1988) was an American artist. He served as the art director of the Works Progress Administration's (WPA) Federal Art Project (FAP) New York City poster division and then went on to illustrate numerous books. Biography Fl ...

* Arthur Flory * Syd Fossum * Louise A. Freedman *

* Maxwell Gordon *

Harry Gottlieb Harry Gottlieb (September 23, 1895 – July 4, 1992) was an American painter, screen printer, lithographer, and educator. Biography Gottlieb was born in Bucharest, Romania on September 23, 1895. He immigrated to America in 1907, and his family s ...

* F. Wynn Graham * Lena Gurr * Robert Gwathmey *

Abraham P. Hankins Abraham P. Hankins (1900–1963) was an American modernist painter. Hankins was born in the Russian Empire and emigrated to the United States in 1914. He studied at the Academy Julien in Paris and the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. His w ...

* Hananiah Harari * Riva Helfond * August Henkel * Philip Hicken * Ernest Hoff * Ernest Hopf * Hoyt Howard * Marion Huse * William H. Johnson *

* Dora Kaminsky * Charles Keller (1914-2006) * Robert Leland Kiley * Bernard A. Kohn *

Chet La More Chet La More (1908–1980) was an American artist. Biography La More was born in 1908 in Dane County, Wisconsin. He studied at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee and the University of Wisconsin. For a time he was the editor of the Balt ...

* Edward Landon * Gretchen Lansford *

Gladys M. Lux Gladys M. Lux (1899-2003) was an American artist and educator, known for painting and printmaking. Biography Lux was born in 1899 in Chapman, Nebraska. She studied to be at teacher at Kearney State College and taught in Nebraska schools for tw ...

Guy Maccoy Guy Maccoy (1904 - 1981) was an American artist known for his serigraphs. Biography Maccoy was born on October 7, 1904 in Valley Falls, Kansas. He studied at the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, the Broadmoor Art Academy i ...

* Marie R. Macpherson * Beatrice Mandelman * Henry Mark * James H. Mcconnell *

Joseph Meert Joseph Meert (1905 - 1989) was an American artist who created three New Deal post office murals. Biography Meert was born in 1905 in Brussels, Belgium. As a child he emigrated with his family to Kansas City, Missouri, US. He studied at the ...

* Isaac Lane Muse *

Elizabeth Olds Elizabeth Olds (December 10, 1896 – March 4, 1991) was an American artist known for her work in developing silkscreen as a fine arts medium. She was a painter and illustrator, but is primarily known as a printmaker, using silkscreen, woodcut, l ...

* Geno Pettit * William Herbert Plant * Herbert William Pratt * Leonard Pytlak *

Mildred Rackley Mildred Rackley (1906-1992) was an American artist known for her printmaking. She is also known for her work in medical services in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Biography Rackley was born on October 13, 1906, in Carlsbad, New Mexico Terr ...

Joseph Rajer Joseph Rajer (1918 - 1976) was an American artist known for his woodcuts and serigraphs. Biography Rajer was born in 1918. He was a member of the Works Progress Administration New York graphic unit where he produced serigraphs (silk screens) a ...

Hulda D. Robbins Hulda D. Robbins (1910–2011) was an American artist. Biography Robbins was born in 1910 in Atlanta, Georgia. She studied at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin, and the Barnes Foundati ...

* Ruth Starr Rose *

Harry Shokler Harry Shokler (18961978) was a 20th-century American artist known for his oil paintings and Screen printing, screen prints. Using a realism (arts), realist approach that produced what one critic called an "exactness of rendition", he made colorful ...

Harry Shoulberg Harry Shoulberg (1903 – 1995) was an American expressionist painter. He was known to be among the early group of WPA artists working in the screen print (serigraph) medium, as well as oil. Biography Harry Shoulberg was born October 25, ...

* Kurt Sluizer * Bernard Steffen * Harry Sternberg * Abram Tromka * Russell Twiggs *

Mary Van Blarcom Mary Van Blarcom (1913–1953) was an American artist known for her printmaking. Biography Van Blarcom was born in 1913 in Newark, New Jersey. She studied at Wellesley College. She was a member of the National Association of Women Artists. S ...

* Albert Urban *

* Sylvia Wald *

Carol Weinstock Carol Weinstock (1914 - 1971) was an American artist and educator. Biography Weinstock was born in 1914 in New York City. She attended the Art Students League of New York. She was married to fellow artist Louis Nisonoff (1907-1979). She was par ...

* Sol Wilson

References

{{Authority control American artist groups and collectives Arts organizations