“[Wallpaper] simply exists as wonderful evidence of human creativity. It is well worth looking at with new eyes, purely for itself.” (Catherine Lynn)

“The WALLPAPER” project affirms the value of looking at wallpaper with new eyes in an age when the study and appreciation of artifacts – real things – is being enhanced, but at the same time challenged, by the ease and ubiquity of visual culture.

What is visual culture? How does visual culture relate to literary culture and the spoken word? Is it an improvement? A substitute? Or is it merely a logical extension of what has gone before? These are interesting questions.

My main concern, though, is this: how should historical wallpaper artifacts be “framed,” for want of a better word, within this emerging visual culture? My project starts from an understanding that wallpaper is a resolutely material artifact invented in the early modern era for decorating walls.

The delivery system of ‘The WALLPAPER’ is a list-serve. A monthly newsletter is sent to inboxes. Research is shared with those professionally involved or personally interested in wallpaper history. To subscribe, send a request to thewallpaper@roadrunner.com

The first few issues of The WALLPAPER focus on situating the inquiry. In Vol. 1, No. 1, three models for understanding wallpaper are considered: Catherine Lynn’s Wallpaper In America (1980) is classified as a design approach; Phillippa Mapes’ thesis “The English Wallpaper Trade, 1750-1830” is taken as an analytical approach; and Bernard Jacqué’s thesis “From The Workshop To The Wall” (2003) is a self-described material culture approach:

Vol. 1, No. 1: http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/k53d-ep66

Lynn’s work Wallpaper In America has been the standard in the field for forty years and set about rescuing wallpaper from a century of neglect. A stand-alone issue is devoted to it (Vol. 1, No. 2.):

Vol. 1, No. 2: http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/fev8-se81

A comparison of the apparent values of the three different approaches mentioned above is the subject of Vol. 1, No. 3.

Vol. 1., No. 3: http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/brte-ke09

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A close look at Bernard Jacqué, his methods, and his thesis takes up Vol. 1, No. 4.

A new definition of wallpaper is the subject of Vol. 1, No. 5. May I have a drum roll please?

A. Essential Meaning Of The Term Wallpaper: “Wallpaper is a species. It belongs to the genus cladding; its specific difference is paper.”

B. Non-essential Meaning Of The Term Wallpaper (based on properties and accidents): “Wallpaper is affordable and flexible, modular in form and design, ordinarily covered with a printed pattern, and made for decorating domestic walls.”

The Zuber clan (Jean Zuber, Jean Zuber-Karth, and Ivan Zuber) who together ruled the company from its origins in the 1790s until World War I will be the subject of several issues.

Future issues will  comment on a few already-translated selections from Jacqué’s thesis. The French language thesis itself is here:

http://theses.univ-lyon2.fr/documents/lyon2/2003/jacque_b

The first translation (PDF 1) is a historiography tracing the written record from 1839.
http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/rzsz-6286

PDF 2 tells how a restatement of Zuber’s “Scenic America,” a blockprint from 1835, was transformed in 1853 by adding hand-painted scenes of the Revolutionary War. In the early 20th century another transformation took place: these hand-painted scenes were enshrined into the scenic itself by creating blockprints of the handpainting. Nancy McClelland, American author and decorator, plays a key role.
http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/jnr1-zv39

PDF 3 is about the scenic revival of the early to mid-twentieth century.
http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/e87a-2350

After the extensive look at the Zuber clan (Vol.1, No. 6. to Vol.1, No. 11), the next issue looked at the Décors of Zuber and Others. Vol. 2, No. 1, 2, and 3 looked at Zuber’s scenics. Then Vol. 2, No. 4 considered the Tableaux of Zuber and Others, Vol. 2, No. 5 looked at so-called Tapestry papers, and Vol. 2, No. 6 presented an overview of scenics (not just Zuber’s). Panoramics, décors, tableaux, and tapestry papers are lumped together here as “The Pictorial Tradition.” This, as opposed to patterned wallpaper.

Madame Cézanne Sewing, nationalmuseum Stockholm c. 1877.

Future essays will transition away from French high-style and toward US wallpaper.

Having completed this groundwork “The WALLPAPER” will shift to working papers: these will present research and notes about American wallpaper 1800-1875.