WALLPAPER AND THE ARTIST From Durer to Warhol <i> By Marilyn Oliver Hapgood (Abbeville Press: $85; 272 pp.) </i>

I admit it: I’ve never given much thought to wallpaper. I remember as a kid appreciating the paper in my brother’s kitchen, but that was less for the cow-farmhouse-green-field pattern than for its non-stick surface. As an adult I’ve always gone for furnished dwellings and, when I recently opened a small theater, I left the bathroom design up to my partner--and she went with paint. But painter and art historian Marilyn Oliver Hapgood has awakened me. Hapgood knows that decorative art carries little critical weight, and so has stuck to 75 renowned artists to make her case that important art is important whether it’s on a canvas on a wall or on just the wall itself. More than 250 illustrations, of papers in situ and not, range from Albrecht Durer’s 16th-Century woodblock images to William Morris’ embroidery (which helped establish Victorianism) to Alexander Calder’s “Splotchy” wallpaper in a breakfast nook a la Jacques Tati. Faring less well are Andy Warhol’s intimidating parodies--who could unwind with 75 Maos staring at them? Hapgood’s notes, like her research, are extensive; she even provides addresses for acquiring many of the wallpapers featured within. But most of all she makes her case well: that a well-chosen artistic wallpaper can enrich our lives.