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Ardor Printing · 12531 Old Snohomish Monroe Rd., Snohomish, WA 98290
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Module 05 · History
A sourced timeline of murals and wall graphics, from hand stencils tens of thousands of years old to Seattle's two-mile SODO Track and today's printed wall films.
Start here
A mural is a large image made directly on a wall or ceiling, or made to be fixed to one. Over the centuries murals have been painted into wet plaster, set in glass tile, printed on paper and, with wide-format digital printing, printed on adhesive film.
Each new method made big images faster to produce and easier to change. The reason stayed the same: people want the walls around them to say something.
Every milestone below carries a status. Verified means we read the source and it says so. Often cited means the date is widely repeated and we have not confirmed it yet. Several sources are encyclopedia summaries, and we name them as such.
Timeline
From the oldest known painting to printed film made for brick. Seattle milestones are included where they happened.
A hand stencil in Liang Metanduno cave on Muna Island, Indonesia, is reported to be at least 67,800 years old, the oldest known cave painting (Oktaviana et al., Nature, January 2026, as summarized by Wikipedia). Caves on nearby Sulawesi hold a pig-hunting scene dated to at least 51,200 years.
SourceWikipedia: Cave painting (citing Nature, 2026) (opens in a new tab)
More than 80 radiocarbon dates point to two periods of painting at Chauvet, about 35,000 and 30,000 years ago, though some researchers question those ages. It is among the best-preserved painted caves known.
The Magdalenian-style paintings at Lascaux are about 17,000 years old. The style died out around 10,000 BC.
The plastered and painted walls of Nebamun's tomb-chapel at Thebes date to about 1350 BCE. Eleven fragments are in the British Museum, which bought them in 1821.
Pompeian wall painting is split into four styles, from the marble-imitating First Style to the panoramic Fourth Style. Most were frescoes, painted into plaster while it was still drying. Vesuvius buried Pompeii in 79 AD and preserved them.
Commissioned by Pope Julius II, the ceiling fresco took four years and was unveiled on 31 October 1512. It measures about 35 by 14 meters and holds more than 300 figures.
SourceWikipedia: Sistine Chapel ceiling (opens in a new tab)
The earliest known English wallpaper sample was printed on the back of a London proclamation dated 1509. Woodblock printing was the most common method before 1700, and England taxed wallpaper from 1712 until 1836.
Oberkampf built the first machine for printing colored tints on wallpaper in 1785. Louis-Nicolas Robert patented a continuous-paper machine in 1799, and by 1813 steam-powered presses in Britain made mass production and lower prices possible.
Zuber et Cie, founded in 1797 and still operating, and Joseph Dufour et Cie printed room-sized scenic papers. Dufour's panoramic 'Sauvages de la Mer du Pacifique' followed in 1804. Zuber's 'Views of North America' (c. 1834) hangs in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room. These panoramas are early ancestors of today's printed photo murals.
Hand-painted brick advertisements from the 1890s to the 1960s were most common before the Great Depression, and many are still visible. The painters were called wall dogs, and the faded survivors are known as ghost signs.
After the Mexican Revolution, the government under Education Minister José Vasconcelos funded public murals. Diego Rivera's first government-backed mural, 'Creation', went into the National Preparatory School in 1922. Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros became known as the Big Three.
Formed on August 29, 1935 as a relief program, the Federal Art Project ran until June 30, 1943. Sources cite as many as 10,000 artists and more than 200,000 works; American Heritage puts the total near 400,000, counting prints and posters.
Philadelphia adopted the first percent-for-art ordinance in a U.S. city, setting aside a share of capital project funds for public art. Seattle and other cities followed.
Paul Horiuchi's Seattle Mural was commissioned for the 1962 Century 21 Exposition and sits at the Mural Amphitheatre at Seattle Center. The city's collection lists it as Venetian glass and grout on concrete, with the glass tiles made in Venice and shipped to Seattle. It was a gift to the city from the Century 21 Corporation.
SourceSeattle Office of Arts & Culture collection: Seattle Mural (opens in a new tab)
The community mural movement is usually traced to Chicago's Wall of Respect (1967), followed by Chicano murals in the Southwest, the Great Wall of Los Angeles (begun 1976) and Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program (1984). These dates are widely repeated, and we have not yet verified each one.
On May 21, 1973, the Seattle City Council approved Ordinance 102210, setting aside 1 percent of capital improvement project funds for art. HistoryLink is clear that Seattle was not the first city to pass such a law, though it was one of the earliest. King County adopted a similar ordinance the same year and was the first county in the nation to do so.
Contra Vision produced what is called the world's first total bus wrap in New Zealand in 1991, using see-through window graphics. The first digitally printed vehicle wrap is thought to have been made for a Crystal Pepsi bus in 1993. The same print-and-apply idea now covers walls.
Scitex Vision began as Idanit Technologies in 1994, was acquired by Scitex in 1998 and was bought by HP in 2005 to become HP Scitex. Deals like these pulled industrial wide-format inkjet into the sign and graphics trade.
Designtex announced it would distribute 3M DI-NOC Architectural Finishes in North America; Interior Design reported the film had previously been available only in Japan. The collection launched in the U.S. on December 1, 2013, with more than 500 patterns, installed with a squeegee, heat gun and blade. The DI-NOC name goes back to a Cleveland company founded in 1923 that 3M acquired in 1962 (Curbside Classic).
A 2016 pilot had 12 artists paint nine murals along Seattle's SODO busway. By August 2018 the corridor held 50 murals by 62 artists along two miles. 4Culture, which led the project with the SODO Business Improvement Area and Urban Artworks, describes it as the world's longest contiguous corridor of street art.
SourceCascade PBS (Crosscut), August 2018 (opens in a new tab)
3M's Scotchcal IJ8624 is a printable film for moderately textured surfaces such as concrete block, brick, industrial stucco and tile. The product bulletin on file is Revision E, dated September 2017; we did not find a launch year. 3M gives an expected indoor life of 2 years on textured surfaces and says that is not a warranted period.
Source3M IJ8624 product bulletin, Rev. E (opens in a new tab)
Did you know?
Each one is drawn from the sources in the timeline above.
Prehistory
A hand stencil on Muna Island, Indonesia, is reported to be at least 67,800 years old.
Renaissance
Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling from 1508 to 1512, with more than 300 figures.
Wallpaper
From 1712 until 1836. The earliest known English wallpaper was printed on the back of a 1509 proclamation.
Wallpaper
Zuber, founded in 1797, still makes scenic wallpaper. Its 'Views of North America' (c. 1834) hangs in the Diplomatic Reception Room.
Muralism
Siqueiros painted three murals in Los Angeles in 1932. Only 'America Tropical' was not painted over.
Seattle
Seattle's 1 Percent for Art passed on May 21, 1973. Philadelphia was first among U.S. cities in 1959; King County's 1973 ordinance was the first by a U.S. county.
Seattle
By 2018 the SODO Track held 50 murals by 62 artists, which 4Culture calls the world's longest contiguous corridor of street art.
Seattle
The tiles in Paul Horiuchi's Seattle Mural were made in Venice and shipped to Seattle for the 1962 World's Fair.
Vinyl
The first digitally printed vehicle wrap is thought to be a 1993 Crystal Pepsi bus.
Seattle murals
Three Seattle landmarks sit on this timeline. Paul Horiuchi's Seattle Mural was made for the 1962 World's Fair and sits at the Mural Amphitheatre at Seattle Center, built from Venetian glass tiles set in grout on concrete. Published dimensions disagree, so we leave the size out.
In 1973 Seattle passed its 1 Percent for Art ordinance, which sets aside 1 percent of capital improvement project funds for art. Seattle was not first; Philadelphia led in 1959. It was one of the earliest cities, and King County passed the first county ordinance the same year.
The SODO Track began as a 2016 pilot along the SODO busway and grew to 50 murals by 62 artists over two miles by 2018. 4Culture led it with the SODO Business Improvement Area and Urban Artworks.
Ardor Printing works north of the city in Snohomish and installs printed walls across King and Snohomish counties. Its Seattle walls include a line-art brewery mural for Reuben's Brews and exhibit walls at the Northwest African American Museum.
What comes next
The next chapter is already showing up on data sheets. Here is what the sources show today.
Our view
This is opinion, not a measured trend. Printed film makes a wall easier to change than paint or plaster, so more spaces will treat walls the way they treat signs: updated when the brand, the mission or the season changes. The cave painters would recognize the impulse.
Projects
Timeline and exhibit walls Ardor has printed and installed.
A floor-to-ceiling purple wall wrap lays out the Interrupting Privilege program's milestones year by year. Timeline walls like this turn a hallway into a story people walk through.
Black and yellow wall wraps and large printed history panels titled First Year and Generation Mixed build an exhibit at the Northwest African American Museum.
No projects in this category yet.
FAQ
Murals began with cave paintings tens of thousands of years ago, moved into Egyptian tombs and Roman villas as fresco, filled Renaissance ceilings like the Sistine Chapel, went public with Mexican muralism and the WPA, and now include printed wall wraps.
The oldest known cave painting is a hand stencil on Muna Island, Indonesia, reported to be at least 67,800 years old (Nature, 2026, via Wikipedia). Chauvet and Lascaux in France are about 30,000 to 35,000 and 17,000 years old.
A fresco is one way to make a mural: pigment painted into plaster while it is still drying, as at Pompeii and in the Sistine Chapel. Mural is the broader term for any large image on a wall or ceiling.
The tools arrived in the 1990s. The first digitally printed vehicle wrap is thought to date to 1993, and wide-format inkjet went mainstream through deals between 1994 and 2005. We have not found a reliable date for the first printed wall wrap.
No. Philadelphia was first among U.S. cities in 1959. Seattle passed its 1 Percent for Art ordinance on May 21, 1973, one of the earliest, and King County's 1973 ordinance was the first by a U.S. county.
A mural corridor along Seattle's SODO busway. It began with a 2016 pilot, and by August 2018 it had 50 murals by 62 artists along two miles. 4Culture calls it the world's longest contiguous corridor of street art.
Paul Horiuchi's Seattle Mural is at the Mural Amphitheatre at Seattle Center. It was made for the 1962 World's Fair from Venetian glass tiles set in grout on concrete.
Free on-site estimates · Ardor Printing
Timelines, mission walls and photo murals for offices, churches, schools and museums. Ardor's free on-site estimate starts with a measure and a look at your wall. Call (425) 629-0796, Monday to Friday, 7am to 5pm.