Sidewall (USA)

Jeff Colson, Sarah Perry, and Robert Therrien were commissioned by Jerry Sohn in 2006 to create wallpaper for his mid-century modern house in southern California. The papers were never produced for the commercial market and this is the only sample of Colson’s design in existence outside the paper installed in the donor’s house. Therrien is primarily a sculptor but has also worked with painting, drawing, printmaking and photography. His work contains everyday objects that he recycles and reinterprets. This paper relates to drawings and silkscreens Therrien created in the late 1990s that featured the red devil subject matter. While the majority of papers in Cooper-Hewitt’s collection were mass produced for residential or commercial use, we also have papers that were not intended for commercial sale; among these are a group of papers produced for the Royal Pavilion at Brighton (1820s); papers designed by A. W. N. Pugin for the Houses of Parliament (ca. 1850); and Andy Warhol’s Cows (1966), which was created as an installation piece. Papers designed by artists are a growing and integral part of the museum’s collection of wallcoverings. This is one of four Sohn-commissioned papers proposed for acquisition. As these papers are not available elsewhere, this would be a significant acquisition.