Wallpaper sample books are one of the lesser known areas of the Wallcoverings department. While sample books can vary greatly in quality and size, each has a story to tell, offering insights into period color trends and wall treatments. The earliest surviving American sample book was produced by the Janes & Bolles Company, in business...

Wallpaper is available in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, with a design, color, or texture to suit every taste. Leave it to Damien Hirst to throw some kinks into this usually conservative medium. This pharmaceutical design is an unusual theme for wallpaper but was very on-point for the restaurant for which it was...

This is another wallpaper design by A.W.N. Pugin in the museum collection. Pugin began designing wallpapers in the early 1840s, and was the most prolific wallpaper designer of the 19th century, designing more patterns than even William Morris. He created a number of private commissions for large country houses, as well as papers for more general...

This is a Colonial Revival wallpaper acquired during the tenure of the museum founders, Eleanor and Sarah Hewitt. This is a 20th century machine-printed reproduction of an early 19th century design. Given the contemporary date of this piece, and the crease across the middle of the paper, when received by the museum this sample was pasted into...

This post was originally published on March 5, 2016. Wallpaper can be used to create a very personal space, one reflecting the style and/or temperament of its creator, or possibly to inspire the desired mood. The myriad wallpapers in production at any given time range from ultra-minimal and loose, to dense pattern-rich designs. Peacock Garden,...

Scrolling framework twists and curls along the length of this wallpaper, Singeries, which was screen printed by Piazza Prints Inc. and is dated to 1965. Winding along these curling sections are delicate green fronds that look to be from a fern or palm tree as their leaves reach outwards. Between the framework and fronds is...

Wall-hangings throughout the centuries have come in a variety of forms and materials, tapping upon subject matter that is just as diverse. During the late 1700’s and early 1800’s scenic wallpapers came into production and swept through Europe, most notably in their place of origin, France. They are thought to have been created in a...

Walking through Central Park I enjoyed seeing all the brightly colored leaves in the trees, while the fallen leaves crunched underfoot. I thought this wallpaper with its warm colors and hints of green seemed to beautifully capture the essence of the fall day. This is a fairly stylized landscape scene which includes trees, vines, and...

One lesser known area of the Cooper Hewitt’s collection are folding screens covered with wallpaper. Many of these contain panels from scenic wallpapers mounted on the face of the screen. Today’s object is an eight-panel folding screen containing a scene called Environs de Paris from the scenic paper titled “Jardín Baujon beí Neuílly.” This is...

Just as burning curiosity turns our heads heavenwards to investigate the mysteries of the sky, this wallpaper seizes our gaze through its fiery appeal, beckoning us to contemplate it’s piercing reds and swirling repeats. Eerie but whimsical faces peer back at the viewer, each sun has a small grin in one moment and a perfectly...

This is a modernist wallpaper from Germany, designed in the 1920s. It is printed in a more or less monochrome color palette which gives it a rather textural look. I was drawn to this design by the extravagant and very fluid design of the flowers which at first glance I thought were dancers in elaborate...

“All of Us” is a group of four different wallpapers that work together to show a gathering of people that starts out as a very dense configuration then transitions to become more sparse as the panels move to the right. The first panel contains a very dense grouping of people, all standing packed in like...

Today’s Object of the Day celebrates the winners of Cooper Hewitt’s National Design Awards. Honoring lasting achievement in American design, the Awards take place annually during National Design Week, with festivities for all ages celebrating design creativity and innovation. Pause is a strong graphic pattern using typographic characters that notify the reader to stop and...

When I’m scrolling through wallpaper images I frequently stop and wonder what movement or inspiration let to the fruition of that design. When I saw this Egyptian-style paper that the museum acquired in 1938 I couldn’t think of any events occurring at that time that may have inspired this. When I looked a little closer...

This is a delightful wallpaper designed for children. The design is rendered in a very flat perspective and illustrated in a naïve manner, which seems reminiscent of illustrations found in children’s books. A fun and whimsical paper that would allow children to create their own little safaris. The jungle scene contains images of lions, tigers,...