Though enigmatic, the iconography of this wallpaper—with its flowers blooming in full, Chinese phoenixes, and scenes of men from the East—expresses the Rococo and chinoiserie styles of the late Georgian and early Victorian periods in England. These styles actually have their origin in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but throughout the 1800s, revival styles proliferated...

Labyrinth is from a collection of murals ranging from traditional ruins and landscapes to more modern styles, or should I say mod? I love all the different wall surfaces, each decorated with a different pattern, and the circular cutouts that really open up the design. This page from the book is a miniature of the...

This paper has a decidedly modern look with the minimalist landscape seen through the arch. The view is bordering on surreal, centering on the ruins of a colonnade, with strong horizontal shadows going off to the right. Two trees are seen in the distance, with a flock of gulls or pigeons, which I initially thought...

I have long admired the wide children’s borders, also called friezes, designed and produced in the early twentieth century, prior to the Great Depression in 1929. Cooper Hewitt has a fair collection of these with the most popular being Winnie the Pooh, produced ca. 1926, coinciding with the release of the book by A.A. Milne...

This photomural of Jackson Lake is one of three such murals introduced by Foto Murals of California in 1948. Each mural was available in a black and white, or sepia version, and measured approximately 90×180 inches. Each photo was captured by a world renowned landscape photographer, and because of a special process developed by Foto...

This is one of a very few wallpapers showing winter-related motifs. The design contains six different snowflakes that repeat twice across the width of the paper. This pattern was introduced in 1929 and is designed in a modernist style. Even today it still looks fresh and modern, printed in a single color on a solid...

This corner border doesn’t appear like much at first appearance but it speaks a lot about technology. This is a ceiling corner border: the design is simple, printed in only a few colors, very affordable. Maybe not so easy to hang but it would have been cheap enough that you could afford to make mistakes....

Shoes is part of the wallpaper collection Flavor Paper produced in collaboration with the Warhol Foundation, with each design offering a new interpretation of the artist’s work. Warhol was passionate about the repetition of pattern and throughout the 1960s he frequently installed his series of screen prints edge to edge to create the look of...

Now that Thanksgiving has arrived, the space of our kitchens is about to be center stage for friends, family, and most importantly, food. All of the most important trappings for Thanksgiving revolve around food and its accompaniments, such as dishware, which, are the center pieces of this kitchen sidewall from the mid 1930’s. Seemingly inlayed...

Producers and designers of contemporary wallpaper are constantly pushing the boundaries of the medium, creating forms beyond what is generally accepted or imagined when one envisions wallpaper. For LED Wallpaper the combined efforts of Ingo Maurer and Architects Paper produced a method of design that had not been integrated into wallpaper up until this point....

Arches is from the first collection of murals Ilonka Karasz designed in 1948 for Katzenbach & Warren, the New York wallpaper firm for whom she designed almost exclusively. Like the majority of her murals it was printed in the blueprint process, her favorite reproduction process for murals as it captured all the nuances of her...

Wallpaper production was dominated by French manufactures in the 18th and 19th centuries, a time period which is often regarded as the “golden age” of wallpaper. The quality of design and material, as well as the quantity of paper created aptly distinguishes this period. Starting around the mid-18th century, French manufactures and designers were able...

With Halloween still fresh in everyone’s minds, this paper conjures up a scene reminiscent of “The Bride of Frankenstein.” A metallic silver background greets the eye as the color pallet continues to sparkle and stun the viewer with its combination of blacks, reds, and yellows. Over a single repeat is a depiction of a Femme...

With the culmination of baseball season upon us, it seems appropriate to turn our attention to this cheerful wallpaper from mid-century. Play Ball shows a single repeat of an ongoing baseball game printed on a light tan background. The scene is extremely dynamic as each figure engages with the action on the field. At home...

This promotional brochure for the Trees mural designed by Ilonka Karasz in 1960 contains a lot of information packed in an attractive format. This is printed in the luxograph process which was the same technique used to print the full-size murals. This technique was a blueprint method introduced by Katzenbach & Warren in 1947 for...