Cowboys and Indians – that quintessential childhood game of midcentury suburbia – is here turned into a wallpaper destined for the rooms of young boys learning how to adhere to the famously rigid gender roles of the 1950s. Three little vignettes are machine printed in shades of yellow, green, red, brown and blue on a...

Entitled “Salome,” this unusual wallcovering was manufactured c.1967 by Bob Mitchell Designs and the pattern was created by the man himself. The design was much appreciated when it was originally produced, and was featured in a collection of the best of California Design curated by the Pasadena Art Museum in 1968. The pop-art inspired floral...

This French sidewall, produced ca. 1845, was block-printed in grisaille tones on a light gray background. Vignettes of daily life in a country village ride magic carpet-like atop grassy meadows. The vignettes are framed by the foliage and trunks of large trees, and two columns each feature alternating pairs of vertically repeating scenes. The left-hand...

Trophées de Chasse is screen-printed on vinyl and features a repeating, overlapping pattern of mounted deer antlers printed over a dark background of tribal-inspired stripes. And it was available with a matching frieze to top off the wall. When I first saw this wallpaper, I had to laugh. Not because it’s silly (maybe it is?)...

This handsome nineteenth century French paper features a block printed pattern of white and gray on a powder-blue background. Rococo Revival scrollwork frames two alternating landscape vignettes of far off and exotic destinations, and the whole pattern repeats vertically. Once scene show idyllic islands topped with classical columned temples. Wind-blown trees, flying gulls and a...

This grand English wallpaper was designed by A.W.N Pugin in the mid-nineteenth century, and is a prime example of the Gothic Revival style he championed. The brown pattern is block printed and flocked on a metallic gold ground. The pattern features alternating crowned fleur-de-lis and Tudor roses, set within a diaper or ogival framework. The...

This lovely sidewall is an exceptional example of the art and craft of wallpaper. Made in France during the mid-nineteenth century, it was block printed on handmade paper, and represents the high end of Victorian wallpaper production. Bouquets of pale pink and yellow roses tumble down a satin, mint-green background along with blue morning glories,...

In 1905, the same year that influential architectural theorist Adolf Loos sounded the modernist rallying cry against ornamentation, a small-town New Jersey designer named Albert Ainsworth decided he was going to go ahead and design a highly ornamental, floral wallpaper anyway. Floppy, mustard-yellow poppies grow from spindly fronds of the same color. A muted, green...

The maker and designer of this 1950s American wallpaper are unknown, but that doesn’t stop it from being awesome. Pineapples, chickens and coffee pots mingle happily with martini glasses, menus and big tuna fish. An assertive group of cherries, lemons and limes reoccur frequently, and a self-satisfied sea lion balances a cocktail on his nose....