Uncovering Wallpaper Design: 1800 - Present

Bringing what we as viewers are familiar with as a backdrop into the foreground, this exhibit explores wallpaper design across the Henry Sheldon Museum’s collection and Middlebury community through time and tastes.

The wallpaper in the Museum’s collection tells the story of artistic process, globalization, and design tastes from the 1800s to present day. While wallpaper operates as a backdrop, bringing it to the forefront sheds light on the skill and process of creating these designs. A large number of the wallpapers on display are block printed. In a contemporary world where so much of production is now automated, these wallpapers invite viewers to slow down and consider the process, layers, and method on display in these prints. Loaned objects such as block printing plates and rollers, provide context for the stages of artistic process, materiality, and scale behind production of the papers.

Curated by Alexandra Weimer in collaboration with Patricia Hannaford Career Center's Visual Communications course and Lisa Rader