I was desperate to create a wallpaper design for my dining room and was struggling with the images I’d been working with. So I went out to look for things with a vertical direction that could make a good jumbo paper. And when I came across Bertha Jaques’s cyanotypes, I knew I’d struck gold. There are some things I would do differently now, a bit, but I put it up and I love it. If you do want to paper with it, I strongly recommend staggering the rolls so that you get some horizontal variation. Scroll down to see what I mean.
A collection of images of cyanotype photograms created by Bertha Jaques around 1910.
The images used here—of milkweed, dandelions, and dog fennel—are taking from the public domain images made available by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. More information can be viewed at https://americanart.si.edu/artist/bertha-e-jaques-2441
The pattern can be purchased as wallpaper or as fabric and various household objects at Spoonflower.
I wasn’t joking—this really is the wallpaper that’s up in my dining room and I adore it! I used the peel-and-stick kind because I’ve never hung paper before and we’re in a pandemic so I don’t want anyone in my house. It was more expensive to buy, but it was pretty easy to hang, at least in this pattern, where I wasn’t matching fussy details.
