Tips on hanging art
We asked several artists, gallery owners, framers and decorators for tips on hanging art and placing three-dimensional art such as sculptures to their best advantage. Here are their recommendations:
Furniture first: Tim Dearinger, who does professional framing for art, recommends arranging your furniture and then placing your art because there will be a relationship of pictures to furniture. “The exception is a fine piece of art,” he said. In that case, “build your room around that piece.”
Hang at eye level: Another consideration is the vantage point from which you will view the art.
“You see art better when you’re looking at it straight on, at eye level, and you don’t have to crook your neck,” said interior designer Eric Hein, who is frequently hired by homeowners to hang art. Even in a dining room, where most art will be viewed by people sitting down, he hangs art about 5 feet, 7 inches high.
Gallery owner Ann Tower, however, wants art in a dining room hung lower than eye level “because you’re looking at it from a seated position,” she said. She suggested “getting a second person, having them sit in a chair and place the painting just at the top of their head.”
Oversize paintings: The eye-level rule is waived with exceptionally large pieces of art, said artist and visual coordinator Betsy Browning. “If I’m hanging an 8-foot painting, I hang it so the lower third is at eye level because if you’re across the room, it’s going to look more balanced on the wall.”
In a small space: Don’t shy away from a large painting you love because you live in a small house or apartment. “A large piece adds drama in the room,” Hein said. “I tell people not to worry about small rooms.”
Browning concurred: “You’ll be surprised how a big painting opens ups the walls.”
Background color: Wall color can be neutral, contrasting or harmonious, depending on the effect you’re after. Browning is not afraid of color. She likes to paint walls as opposed to keeping them white to “make the whole room an envelope of color.” If you have a green painting and put it on a red wall, the contrast will make it jump off that wall, she said. A green painting on a pale green and yellow toned wall creates a “calm, harmonious feeling,” she said.
Frames: With modern art, “less is generally more” when it comes to framing, said artist Rubin Piper said. A visually strong piece will carry its weight without a frame, he said. Museums use elaborate antique frames to reflect “the time the painting was done, not to make the art more showy,” he said.
Darrell Schirmer, who does custom framing for customers said a frame should not compete for attention with the painting it surrounds.
“You don’t frame to change the look of a picture. You want it to help add a finishing touch,” he said. “But you are looking at the picture, not the design of the frame. You don’t want to detract from the picture or have the frame compete with the picture.”
Light: Artwork should hang out of direct sunlight because of the destructiveness of ultra-violet rays, said Kathy Walsh-Piper, executive director of the University of Kentucky Art Museum. UV light will discolor the pigments in oil paintings and deteriorate the surface of paper and canvas, Rubin Piper added.
Pay attention where sun shines into a room, where it goes down. “Sun is stronger in the afternoon,” Hein said. “Anything of investment quality, I try to hang away from sunlight. Sun will fade and decrease it in value.”
Sculpture: A sculpture is harder to place successfully than a painting because it takes up more room, Tower said. Sculpture has flexibility, though.
“You can move it around,” she said, recommending mantles, bookcases and niches as good placement locations.
She said columns or pedestals also “work fine” for displaying sculpture. She suggested a piece of limestone for outdoor sculpture “to get it up off the ground.”