Monoprinting was first seriously used by Italian painter Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1616-1670), it is thought that he discovered this method in Rome 1635. His monoprints were basically produced in the same way as those of today.

- He painted his pictures directly onto a smooth metal plate and printed the wet image onto the paper, Eg... 'Head of an Oriental', 'Flight into Egypt', and the 'Resurrection of Lazarus'

eg's. pending a trip to the library

- He also drew directly into the ink, his method was to lay a thin film of black ink onto a smooth metal plate and with a drawing tool, would produce his composition into the ink. When the print was complete it appeared as white drawn lines on a black background.
Eg...'Nativity' and 'Temporal Eternity'.

eg's. pending a trip to the library

In the 1870's a change took place, whereby artists no longer required an assistant to print their works. Artists showed a greater interest in the physical partaking of the printing process. The hands on aspect of printing formed part of the creative form. Therefore this new approach led inevitably to the rediscovery of the monoprint.

Artists that used this medium seriously in their work were Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissaro, Auguste Renoir and Paul Gaugin.

In the early 1900's monoprints were introduced in the curriculum of the students of the Bauhaus at Weimar, forming part of the 'modern' movement which was keen on investigating every aspect of image formation and creation. Eg...of artists in this period are Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, George Rouault, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall.