The Lux Print Gallery winter exhibition focuses on prints called either silk screens or serigraphs. This type of artists’ print is made by using a series of frames with tautly stretched mesh fabric. The image is created by a chemical process that coats portions of the mesh to stop the paint from moving through it. A number of different screens may be employed to create an image, typically a different paint color is used for each screen.

When the screens are completed, they are placed sequentially over a piece of paper and a squeegee is used to press the paint through each screen. The process is like stencil work but is more controlled due to the fine mesh instead of cut openings. Multi-color images require accurate registration so that the image is precisely crafted. Any misalignment of a frame or of the stopping medium on the mesh will cause the image to look fractured or distorted in shape and color.

Among the artists in SCREENINGS! is Nebraska born and Lux Center benefactor Gladys Lux, who was a frequent and competent creator of serigraphs. There are eight of her screen prints in the exhibition. Two are greeting cards she sent to her many friends, colleagues, and family over the years; another print was used for a program cover; and the remainder were created for her pleasure.

Two other Nebraska natives are in the exhibition, Dwight Kirsch and Dale Nichols. Kirsch began teaching in the University of Nebraska art department in the 1920s when Gladys Lux was an art student at UNL. His serigraphs titled New Year and Big Cottonwood are uniquely different images. Nichols’ piece, titled The Hunter Coming Home, is a paradigmatic image of a Nebraska farmstead in winter.

SCREENINGS! comprised of eighteen serigraphs may be seen on the second floor of the Lux Center for the Arts in the Lux Print Gallery. The exhibition is curated by Susan Soriente, Curator of the Lux Print Collection.