Remember wallpaper?

It was that tacky stuff you had to strip off the walls of that 1927 Arts & Crafts style house you just bought from an 82-year-old woman who hadn’t updated the home since the Eisenhower administration. The faded wallpaper was pink flowers, blue bows, or — saints preserve us — both, and it was a messy job to remove it. But as soon as you got it down and slapped a new coat of paint on the walls, you had increased the value of your home by about 7 percent.

Well, a funny thing has happened while you’ve been busy poring over 13,567 paint chips for your living room makeover — wallpaper has had a renaissance. In fact, it’s even outgrown its name. At the higher end stores, they call it “wall cover” now, to better reflect the remarkable range of prints, colors and textures that are available. They can be handmade, custom-fit, and, believe it or not, downright hip.

Just ask the folks at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston — about as hip an institution as you’ll find around these parts. They were so impressed with the wallpaper of artist Jessica Smith that two of her designs — “Cars Go Beep” and “Spying on China” — were part of the museum’s recent “Design Life Now” exhibit. This is hand-painted wallpaper (about $130 a roll) — and the designs are unique and provocative. Smith isn’t just interested in making your alcove look nice, she’s got something to say. In “Cars Go Beep,” the repeated image of a SUV says something unflattering about the suburban dream. And, and if you look closely at “Spying on China,” you’ll find a sly comment on the traditional commemorative wallpapers that depicted great events in history. Pictures of spy planes over beautiful Asian landscapes suggest that, these days, we’re making a new, less heroic kind of history.

Jessica Smith worked with Studio Printworks, a company that’s represented locally by Webster & Company at the Boston Design Center on the Waterfront. And although Smith’s political take isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, the astounding array of art wallpaper — sorry, wall covers — at Webster & Company clearly indicates that we’re in a new age of wallpaper design.

“We’ve definitely noticed a trend toward wallpaper in the past nine months to two years,” says William R. Schroeder, at Webster & Company. He admits that wallpaper had been getting pummeled by paint — your grandmother’s wallpaper was out, way out, and Benjamin Moore’s Roasted Red Pepper paint in your dining room was in. But now he sees the tide slowly turning, because “there are so many beautiful wallpapers, so much unique product available.”

And the arrival of artists such as Smith is just the beginning. Anyone who’s been paying attention to wallpaper in the past decade has seen the emergence of textures, with grass cloths leading the way. Not only are they providing texture to rooms — this is a wall cover you’ll want to touch — the grass cloths have a natural, organic look and feel that’s certainly in fashion these days. They are also a great way to connect the outdoors with the indoors. With their soothing earth tones, they can bring a welcome part of the country to busy city life.

But plant-based wall covers are just the beginning. Leathers and suedes are also a part of the mix — and Schroeder points out that not only can they add texture and warmth to a room, their natural sound-dampening qualities can bring a softness to the acoustics of a room as well. Other designers are working with glass beads, real leaves and even flakes of mica in their wallpapers.

But to see who’s pushing the wall cover envelope, you may want to flip through the racks of designs being offered by high-end, London-based companies such as de Gournay and Fromental. Here, you’ll find designs that qualify as works of art. Although these companies are pushing the art form forward, they also honor wall paper’s roots. Many of these new wallpaper designs echo the work of their Asian forbearers, using familiar materials and motifs. An example is a de Gournay design called “Bamboo” — the warm, gold-guilded tea paper background provides a sharp contrast to the simple but striking bamboo plant design.

And de Gourney offers some gorgeous India Tea Paper colors in saturated eye-catching colors. They are vibrant and striking. (They run about $1,200-$2,000 for a 7x3-foot panel.) On the subtler end, you’ll find wonderfully understated pastels called Mediterrean Red, Bleach Lobster, Orchid Tint and Lilac Marble. The gorgeous midtones include Ice Field, Pale Mint, Vivid Olive and Manganese Blue. The boldest are slub silk wallpapers cast in dazzling hues. With names like Roman Red, Scarlet Lady, Deep Orange and Arancio, these colors are so vibrant — almost electric — that you probably wouldn’t dare to paint a room any of these colors, but because they are wallpapers, a new standard applies — they are works of art, that, especially when used as an accent, make a bold and beautiful statement.

But perhaps the most dramatic line of wall covers at Webster & Company belongs to Fromental. They take classic, Asian-inspired wallpaper ideas and give them new twists. These are striking, big-panels designs — 7 feet by 3 feet — that are hand-painted and hand-embroidered in China. On a silk background, the artists embroider scenes — often flora and fauna — with dazzling color. These exquisite panels can run as much as $1,800, but considering the hand-crafted workmanship, that’s not so surprising.

“If you bought a painting that size, how much would that cost?” asks Schroeder.

All of these designs are modified to fit the exact specifications of your room. Fromental’s simple and elegant, Zen-like cherry tree design can be customized to fill any wall, making accommodations for doors, windows and even mirror placement. Tell them the specs of your room and they’ll craft the full-wall design for maximum effect. Now that’s installation art.

It’s understandable that, as Schroeder reports, some people want to cast these extraordinary designs on movable muslin panels rather than the wall — they want to be able to take these designs with them when they sell their house. But Schroeder suggests that, as painful as it may be, it may be time to let them go when you sell the house. The design was chosen and constructed specifically for that room, and perhaps that’s where it belongs.

But that’s probably the only thing that will separate you from these works of art. These are classic designs that should never go out of style. They’ll be right for your room as long as you own it.

1. Get a designer. Not only do you have to work with a designer in order to purchase at Webster & Company, but a designer will likely help you avoid making an expensive mistake. It’s not just a question of what looks good on a rack in a design store, it’s what looks good on your walls, surrounded by your furnishings, in a house with its own distinctive style.

2. Be aware of the kind of light that your room gets. Is it South-facing light, or North-facing light; is it warm light or cool light? It will make a big difference. And take advantage of the samples. Just like you can bring home a paint swatch — or, better yet, a small sample bottle of your paint — you can bring home a section of wallpaper and try it in your room. Take a close look at different times of day, in different light. You’ll be surprised by the way it changes.

3. Trust your instincts. People can get overwhelmed when they go into a wall covering store with countless samples of such wide ranging styles. “I tell people that the first thing you gravitate towards is usually the best choice,” says William Schroeder.