Author: Gregory Herringshaw

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Image features a length of wallpaper printed in black on a light gray ground, showing a stylized rendering of a forest with trees represented as strong vertical lines with periodic circular, oval, and conical masses of foliage. The differing scales and overlapping lines create a shallow sense of depth. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Now Entering Lines Forest
In celebration of National Design Month, October’s Object of The Week posts honor past National Design Award winners. This post was originally published on July 9, 2017. This wallpaper by Geoff McFetridge somewhat resembles a circuit board with its minimal rendering of visual elements, but the title, “Lines Forrest,” clearly sets the record straight that...
Image features a rectangular panel of wallpaper showing stylized branches and foliage interspersed with cubist motifs printed in green, black, burgundy, tan, yellow, gray and metallic gold on mottled tan ground. The paper is embossed with very fine horizontal wavy lines. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Charles Burchfield’s Modern Wallpaper
This post was originally published on June 1, 2016. Charles Burchfield is one of the best known American watercolorists of the twentieth century, painting urban street scenes as well as more rural landscapes in a rather sullen fashion. It is less well known that he designed wallpaper, working for the M. H. Birge and Sons...
Image features a wallpaper illustrating the history of the locomotive, in a repeat of scattered drawings of locomotives and railway trains in orange, gray, and yellow, accompanied by the dates 1830, 1870, and 1935. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Train History on the Wall
Welcome to the Object of the Week blog. This March, in celebration of Women’s History Month, each Monday a new post will highlight women designers in the collection. This wallpaper called Transportation traces the history of the railroad from 1830 to about 1938. The designer, Mary Louise Leake, was inspired to create this design after...
Image shows a dado panel containing a dense, lush flower bed. Please scroll down for additional information on this piece.
Always Summer in the Winter Garden
For the past couple days, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a French scholar doing research on the Parisian wallpaper manufacturer Jules Desfosse and later, Desfosse & Karth. We went through the museum holdings of wallpapers by this design firm and saw some really beautiful pieces. Jardin d’Hiver stands out as one of the...
Image features a wallpaper showing a wave motif, with every second swell containing a fish. Printed in blue, black, tan and red on off-white ground. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Something Fishy for Your Walls
This post was originally published on August 16, 2014. The Curwen Press got its start in east London in 1863 as a music publisher. The scope of the business expanded and in 1920 began including book publishing and artist prints. It was at this time that the Curwen Press made contact with the Royal College...
Image features a wallpaper mural design, appearing like a brightly colored barcode. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Show Your Stripes
A colorful design to brighten your day! Kinetics is a mural design from the Kaleidoscope collection of murals and supergraphics by James Seeman. Resembling a colorized barcode, the design may have been inspired by this emerging technology. Patented in the United States in 1951, it took about twenty years for the barcode to become commercially...
Image features a wallpaper design with two putti, two birds, and a goat. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
The Golden Age, or Two Putti and a Goat
The Golden Age is a delightful wallpaper designed by Walter Crane in 1887 and printed by Jeffrey & Co. in London as part of their Victorian Wall-Paper collection. The design contains two winged putti, standing on a large foliate swag, supporting or carrying a large basket of fruit. There are two large birds, maybe cockatoos,...
Image features a richly hued wallpaper depicting a vividly colored peacock perched in a cedar tree, amidst purple lilac and yellow wisteria blossoms, all on a black background. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object
As Pretty as a Peacock, indeed
This is one of the most gorgeous and dramatic wallpapers produced during the early twentieth century. The design shows a brilliantly colored peacock perched in a cedar tree, with copious blossoms of lilac and wisteria in yellow and lavender. All of the printed colors pop against the black ground. And note the size of the...
Image features wallpaper showing a seated female figure holding a cupid-like figure, amidst swags and multicolored floral decoration on a blue ground. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Balancing Nature, and Cupid, too
This is an arabesque wallpaper design from the late eighteenth century, containing two alternating views. The top view shows a woman, possibly Venus, within an arbor seated on a cross frame stool, playfully bouncing a putto, perhaps Cupid, on her foot. A tall urn sits behind her. A tree grows off to the left, towering...