/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

bee looking at blotter art. Upon inspection I think there were two main processes of producing it:
flexography and something like linocut.
Does anyone know about some history how it was printed in the beginning? Somehow those blotter designs look really cool to me, some of those graphics encompass a lot of creativity, yet being quite simple. Maybe someone know stories about people who done this? Who were they artists? Art students? People whose hobby was art? Really fascinating stuff.