About WallpaperScholar.Com *

This site is a work in progress. Like many web sites, it seeks to display and attract. Display because there are many examples of wallpaper consulting prowess and attract because I seek to promote more wallpaper research.

Wallpaper still has much to teach us. The very way we think of it is open to question. We usually consider it a minor decorative art, but is that it?

Other countries have a far greater appreciation of wallpaper than we do. England has the longest tradition of commercial wallpaper, while France has produced more distinguished wallpaper than any other country.

In fact, we're still in our infancy in studying the topic (and certainly, our own), though it's likely that we used more wallpaper, particularly in the 19th century, than any other country. Though we used the most, we seem to study it the least, perhaps for the very reason that it is so familiar.

Wallpaper has a claim to being a decorative art - but only just barely. The strength of it is that, while never ceasing to be decorative, it also became an omnipresent object of use. I suggest that the simple fact that people enjoyed wallpaper, and continue to do so, is more important than the color or design of it, and explains it's long-running appeal.

This way of looking at wallpaper is hardly original. I am only repeating what Catherine Lynn said over twenty years ago as part of her analysis. Not to mention the voluminous work of scholars such as Bernard Jacque and Christine Woods (Bernard at the Wallpaper Museum in France and Christine at the helm of the Wallpaper History Review of England). My hope is that we in the United States can build on their research. If we do, it will help us to understand other parts of our heritage.

Here, when wallpaper has been examined, it's usually fallen under the art historical microscope (and found wanting, no argument there). It's sometimes considered as part of the industrial vernacular[1], a mass-produced item, cheaply made and familiar, in fact, an outgrowth of folk art, but with a mechanical twist. This is closer to the truth, but it doesn't explain why people should be so much more attached to their wallpaper than to, say, their door hinges. People genuinely enjoy wallpaper; switch plates, not so much.

One key to wallpaper's importance is that it’s not necessary. It doesn't actually do anything. Unlike paint, it doesn't protect surfaces -- on the contrary, most types of wallpaper are ripped and damaged rather easily. It's not durable like wooden paneling or roof tiles or iron fencing. It doesn't keep out the sun like curtains, nor does it hold up walls. It is merely beautiful.

How then does it differ from an art object? I think the answer lies in the democratic nature of it, which fosters a personal attachment. In the 1870's, few could afford a painting by an artist of the Hudson River School, but the cost of a good satin wallpaper from, say, Howell Brothers in Philadelphia, was within reach for many. And for those who could not even afford satins, there were alternatives such as blanks (machine prints on ungrounded paper). Thus there was a hierarchy of wallpaper, well understood at the time.

We have now lost the sense of this hierarchy so completely that when historic wallpaper is mentioned, the first images that come to mind are "scenics" or "flocks" when, in fact, these were always the exceptional papers.

I suppose a shorthand way of introducing this site, then, is to say that we're more likely to aim at the unexceptional papers, on the vast supply of wallpaper that we still know relatively little about. Another task is to better understand the higher-priced wallpapers, by putting them in context. We need to know more in a general way about how much wallpaper cost, how it was packaged, sold, and hung, and how people made their choice and used it in the home.

This is my approach, not only as a reaction to the overtly art-historical slant of most of the literature, but also for the practical reason that it's the commercial and industrial parts of the business that I know the most about. This is because of my background in paperhanging and in the field of reproduction wallpaper.

I began hanging paper in 1976, and worked for ten years before hanging my first scenic paper, at Lindenwald, the retirement home of Martin Van Buren. Since that time, I've specialized in work for the historic house, installing reproduction and antique wallpapers and studying historic wallpaper installation. This led to editing Wallpaper Reproduction News, a newsletter, for 9 years. All the time, I was collecting books, articles and ephemera such as bills and trade cards and the like. Research libraries have been helpful, especially the Winterthur Library and the wallpaper department at the Cooper-Hewitt museum. I evolved from a paperhanger who also did consulting to a consultant who also did paperhanging.

The material that I have collected is now called the "Historic Paperhanging Library" and my files, notes and the like are being forged into articles and books.

I am working on two books. One is a complete history of paperhanging, and the other is a picture book about early American wallpaper, which I hope will show more clearly what sort of paper the American people were using, on those days when they were not installing scenics or flocks.

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1. Jennings, Jan, and Herbert Gottfried, American Vernacular Interior Architecture, 1870-1940 (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1993).

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