In April 1914 the Modernist Studios in New York City held an “Exposition of Bad Taste.” Wallpaper patterns that had been popular in the 1880s served as the backdrop for a crowded display comprising “marble-topped furniture, seaweed, wax flowers, and other treasures under glass; samplers, homemade paintings, ornate chinaware of every description, and countless articles such as were considered extremely genteel in the old days.”
