I always get a kick out of this wallpaper with its humor, its play on traditional design, and its spunk. Who would have thought the lowly meatball could be elevated to star status on a wallpaper? It’s unexpected to find a meatball slapped on a wall, outside of a food fight, and rather a new...

The Cooper-Hewitt has several wallpapers designed by Christine Tarkowski and produced by the Thematic Wallpaper Company which she founded in 1992. Like many of Tarkowski’s designs, this wallpaper features an everyday object, in this case a drain, to serve as its unconventional motif. Other wallpapers feature hands, meatballs, cacti, and rose thorns seemingly taken from...