Author: Gregory Herringshaw

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Image features a wallpaper frieze with a bucolic scene of rolling hills, while picket fences, and groves of trees. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Dining with the Poppies
This is a fun frieze, also known as a wide border, produced in America during the early years of the twentieth century. It captures a bucolic scene of rolling hills, white picket fences, and fields of red poppies. I almost expect to see horses trotting by, or cows grazing. The design has a deep perspective...
Image features an Empire-style wallpaper with two figural landscape views. Please scroll to read the blog post about this object.
Roses and Music, or Cat and Mouse
This wallpaper format is fairly typical of a new genre that appeared following the upheaval of the French Revolution. The designs consist of one or two landscape views which alternate with one or two smaller secondary elements. These are almost always printed over a spotted or otherwise patterned ground. This particular design contains two each...
Image features a design of a black sheep or ewe performing a variety of beauty rituals. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
This Ewe Rocks!
I always get good feedback when I blog about poodle wallpapers from the post-war period. They seem to trigger an emotional response, and people either love them or hate them. I’ve pretty much exploited all the poodle wallpapers in the collection, but fear not, I’ve found a substitute. This paper features a black sheep, primping...
Image features a wallpaper with mosaic-like design composed of butterfly wings. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Winging It
Thought it was time to show another wallpaper by Damien Hirst. Like many modern and contemporary artists who turn to wallpaper design, Hirst uses his artwork or installations as inspiration. This is based on the “Kaleidoscope” paintings Hirst began creating in 2001, where butterflies, or butterfly wings, were arranged in elaborate patterns and adhered to...
Image features a wallpaper with an arabesque design containing floral bouquets, cupids, vases, and acanthus scrolls. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
A Stellar Arabesque
France started making advancements in wallpaper manufacture in the 1770s, and by the 1780s they were making papers of a quality that has never been surpassed. Réveillon is one of the better-known manufacturers from this period, and was most celebrated for his arabesque designs, which were influenced by the recently discovered wall paintings at Herculaneum...
Image features a blue wallpaper with design of white skeletons each assuming a different pose. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Perky Little Skeletons
Perfect for the Halloween season is this wallpaper aptly titled “Skeletons”. The pattern is composed of skeletons each assuming a different wacky pose. There are nine different poses in total, forming a neat grid, but the designer’s skill in placing the motifs creates a nice overall flow which appears to contain an unlimited variety of...
Image features a striped curtain paper with tie backs. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Exploring Curtain Papers
I recently had the opportunity to look at the museum’s collection of curtain papers, a lesser known group in the Wallcoverings department. A visiting paper conservator from the UK’s National Trust was researching curtain papers and while in New York on a courier trip stopped by to see Cooper Hewitt’s examples. Not much is known...
Image features a wallpaper with cameos of General Nathanael Greene and a battle scene, printed in shades of gray. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Remembering Major General Nathanael Greene
This wallpaper honoring Major General Nathanael Greene is designed in the arabesque style, a format very popular in France at the end of the eighteenth century. Inspired by the mosaics and painted murals discovered at the recently unearthed Herculaneum and Pompeii, the designs are delicately balanced along a central axis. General Greene, spelled Green on...
Image features a wallpaper design of scrolling cast iron work, printed in orange on a red ground. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
A Wallpaper Stronghold
In celebration of the milestone 20th anniversary of the National Design Awards, this week’s Object of The Day posts honor National Design Award winners. Citadel is among the early wallpaper designs Jack Lenor Larsen created for Karl Mann. This is a striking, intense pattern that needs to be viewed up close or zoomed in on...