MANCHESTER, ENGLAND — Homeowners who pore over wallpaper books are connecting with an art and a craft that dates back to 18th-century France.
Back then, wallpaper came in small, rectangular sheets made on book printers’ presses and was probably hand-tinted. Wallpaper was a decorative luxury.
The industrial revolution changed all that. Continuous wallpaper, which we know today as rolls, was developed in the 19th century. A growing middle class, desiring a look of luxury previously available only to the wealthy, could paper their walls – and paper them they did!
Like fashions in clothing, wallpaper designs come in cycles, and Christine Woods, curator of wallpapers at the Whitworth Art Gallery on the campus of the University of Manchester in England, has traced them all.
The collection she has overseen for 20 years focuses on machine-made wallpapers from the late 19th century to the present, from the cheapest “bread-and-butter” lines to forward-thinking contemporary designers. Fragments, sometimes painstakingly removed during redecoration somewhere, are framed. Large sections of whole rolls are displayed in clever Lucite cases.
The collection includes ever-popular florals, in-and-out-of-style geometrics or historical scenes, plus novelty pictorials meant for bathrooms, kitchens and children’s rooms, and portrait papers of continuous-roll Elvises, Madonnas or the Beatles.
“The V&A doesn’t collect any of those,” says Woods, referring to London’s high-toned Victoria & Albert Museum, known for its collection of older, costlier wallpapers.
Visitors to the Whitworth’s dedicated wallpaper gallery, and especially to the basement storage areas, include interior design students, theatrical and film designers, the proverbial Mr. and Mrs. Jones seeking a historically accurate pattern for a home that they are restoring – and also “people who used to work in the wallpaper industry.”
Make an appointment, and Woods will enthusiastically show you around. You might find that the pattern selected for your home originated across the ocean decades ago.
Many wallpaper designs have been around more than once. Patterns are expanded or shrunk, done in different colors and color combinations, or interpreted with borders to suit the interior styles of the time. Metallic finishes come into vogue and fall out again. Vinyl papers, varnished papers and embossed papers ascend and then fade from the decorating scene.
Trendy wallpapers reflect other pop-culture elements. The post-World War I automotive era was reflected in the Modernist papers of the 1920s and ’30s. The atomic age and scientific breakthroughs of the ’40s and ’50s are reflected in designs suggesting the double helix and planetary orbits.
During the mod-squad era of the late 1950s and ’60s, geometrics were in. Two decades later, when disco held sway, glitzy metallics covered many walls. Red and purple were big in the psychedelic era.
Flocked papers include
fibers – once costly French mohair, but now also other fibers. Woods predicts that “shiny finishes and flock that looks like velvet or fine suede will be next, and most designers will be concentrating on large patterns.”
The Classics
Some patterns endure. Consider “Willow Boughs,” a leafy, botanical print by 19thcentury designer William Morris who is perhaps best-known for furniture, including the iconic Arts & Crafts chair that bears his name.
Walter Crane, a famous turn-of-the-century British architect and illustrator, did wallpapers while waiting for other commissions. His name added cache to the wallpaper business.
“Why are we still buying designs from the 19th century?” Woods asks rhetorically. “It’s comfortable.”
Some recent designs have been less comfortable. One offering from German designer Borek Sipek’s Rasch brand is machine-printed and embossed on brown vinyl. The buyer gets small blown-glass balls to hang on it. It is dazzling and energizing but looks too vulnerable to be comfortable.
“Bloody Wallpaper,” a 1995 design by Abigail Lane, is an effort to combat the desensitization of modern life. The pattern, inspired by a crime scene, is of bloody handprints. “In the William Morris era, wallpaper shut out violence,” Woods notes. “Lane reminded people that violence is in the home.”
No permanent wallpaper exhibition hangs at the Whitworth. Exhibits change about every eight months.
The current show, “Flights of Fancy,” features Modernist designs that were a reaction to the formality and opulence of Victorian and Edwardian eras.
It focuses on hand-printed Art Deco elements such as borders, drop-downs from picture rails and other cutouts that enabled people to assemble their own design schemes. It also showcases “aspirational” depictions of nature, exotic travels and the glamour of the silver screen.
The exhibit runs through October 2008.
The Whitworth is open Monday through Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday noon to 4:00 p.m. Admission is free. Call +44 (0) 161 275 7480 or E-mail Christine.Woods@manchester.ac.uk to request a visit to the storerooms.
In tune with the trends
Wallpaper circulates in and out of fashion with more regularity than platform pumps and oversized sunglasses. Past interpretations may now seem dowdy, but today’s designers and graphic artists are reinterpreting classic wallpaper patterns and applications in bold, trendsetting ways.
DRAMATIC DAMASKS: New damasks are at once densely packed and larger than life. What keeps them livable is their urbane palette for today’s more streamlined aesthetic.
PAISLEY POWER: As damasks have become de rigueur, so has their next of kin – the paisley. Even more fetching is the marriage of elaborate paislies and damasks in one design.
TREE POETRY: As thoughts turn to fall foliage, the trees that have long inspired wallpaper designers hold even greater allure. Leaves become exuberant, branches stretch into stripes. The stark beauty of bare trees, trees in silhouette, and even a stack of logs lends a contemplative air to new wallpaper patterns.
FINE PLUMES: The fashion flock has fallen hard for feathers this season, but a little goes a long way. Just the opposite is true in wallpaper, where birds of a feather flock together.
STRIPE APPETITE: Stripes are classic, and wallpaper designers love to reinvent them by toying with scale, layering lines, and dallying with details that are inconspicuous from afar yet command attention up-close. Daring designers install stripes horizontally to open up a room.
WARMING TREND: Like a ray of sunlight, yellow bursts forth from an otherwise neutral palette this season. And why not? It shoots a room full of adrenaline and effortlessly shifts from retro, modern rooms to traditional schemes.
GORGEOUS GRAYS: Gray painted walls can be somber, cold, even dismal, but in a wallcovering, this shimmering shade is the height of chic, especially when accented with pearlized metallics.
-Wallcoverings Association
