Exhibitions

Well-Dressed Walls: Spanning Three Centuries of Wallpaper from the Cooper Hewitt Collection

March 23, 2016 – January 31, 2023

Smithsonian Institution Building (The Castle)
1000 Jefferson Drive, SW
Washington, DC

In this small display, reproductions of wallpaper dating from the 1770s to the 1950s from the collection of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum are installed in pairs to reflect the practice of designing wallpapers to be used together. Wallpapers reflect world events and trends, as well as economic and technological changes, ranging from luxury goods printed with wood blocks on handmade papers to affordable consumer goods mass-produced on high-speed printing presses.

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