Enfilade

Installation view of the exhibition The Art of French Wallpaper Design at the RISD Museum, November 2024.

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The exhibition is accompanied by an online publication:

The Art of French Wallpaper Design
RISD Museum, Providence, 16 November 2024 — 11 May 2025

The Art of French Wallpaper Design explores the vibrant, surprising designs that adorned walls in the 1700s and 1800s. Featuring more than 100 rare samples of salvaged wallpapers, borders, fragments, and design drawings, this exhibition reveals the creative process and showcases the extraordinary technical skills involved in producing these works, presenting an invaluable resource for artists and enthusiasts alike. This exhibition celebrates the vision and generosity of collectors Charles and Frances Wilson Huard, whose remarkable collection, assembled in the 1920s and ’30s, is now in the care of the RISD Museum. Accompanied by a comprehensive digital publication, The Art of French Wallpaper Design invites you to explore the remarkable innovation and craftsmanship of these historic pieces.

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Lyra Smith, ed., with contributions by Emily Banas, Brianna Turner, and Andrew Raftery, The Art of French Wallpaper Design (Providence: Rhode Island School of Design Museum, 2024), available online»

The vibrant designs of French papier peint (literally meaning painted paper) that adorned walls in the 1700s and 1800s were collected and donated to the museum by French artist Charles Huard and his wife, American writer Frances Wilson Huard. The Huard Collection is a rare resource due to the fragile and ephemeral nature of wallpapers. This free online publication explains the preservation methods used to take care of the wallpapers along with components made in the process, such as design drawings and woodblocks. The attentive care taken to preserve the materials made during each phase of the design process make the Huard Collection an ideal teaching collection.

Essays
• Introduction to French Wallpaper — Emily Banas
• About the Huard Collection — Emily Banas
• Conservation and the Huard Collection: Preserving the Processes of Making — Brianna Turner
• Printing Matters: Wallpaper in the Context of Printmaking — Andrew Raftery

The Collection
The RISD Museum contains one of the most significant collections of French 18th- and 19th-century wallpapers in the United States with approximately 500 wallpaper panels, borders, fragments, and design drawings. Here, you can browse the wallpapers by their collections, colors, motifs, or time periods.

The Making of Wallpaper
This video provides a guided, in-depth look at seven different wallpapers in the Huard Collection. Watch, listen, and learn about the hidden stories these wallpapers can tell us about their design, making, and use.