5 Steps to Luxury Picture-Hanging

In my many years of working in the art world, I’ve noticed a process that occurs in nearly every art installation. Major museums and a handful of large galleries or auction houses will have full-time specialists to handle each step in the process. A single painting may be addressed by eight or ten professionals before it’s ready for public display: the packers (to unpack the artwork from the shipping crate); the registrar; the curator and curatorial assistant; the photographer. And of course, the installation crew.

At home, you won’t have that big staff of specialists, yet most of these tasks still may have to be addressed (ok, maybe not the registrar and photographer). And it’s not a linear process. Each of these steps can weave in and out of the installation process–in fact, more likely to weave as the number of pieces grows.

Layout, design, arrangement, placement

It can go by many names, but it’s the process of choosing the best spot for one painting or print, or the detailed design of a gallery wall of family photos, or the intelligent placement of every piece in your collection upon moving into a new home. If the process is to be carried out smoothly and culminate in a look befitting a beautiful home, someone must plan the layout for the best display of your art, photos, framed memorabilia, and other wall treasures.

Curation

Someone needs to be able to take a critical look at the pieces you’re considering hanging. It’s hard to be impartial about items you have loved and have been with you for years or even decades. If you don’t have that impartiality, someone with a trained eye for display needs to be able to tell you when some of your pieces don’t work as well as others in a particular setting. Maybe a piece isn’t ideal for the living room but would be fine for the guest room. Maybe a piece isn’t right for taking center stage on a wall but would be great as part of a grouping or gallery wall. Also, this arranger/curator needs to be able to point out gaps in a collection, and have ideas on how to fill them.

Optimizing Each Piece

Sometimes beautiful art is diminished by a frame that’s outdated, dingy, banged up, or just not right for the art or for the spot in your home you want the piece to hang. Or the matting around prints or photos is yellowed or faded, or the picture has slipped so it’s lying crooked in the mat. Sometimes a piece should be professionally cleaned. Or the hanging hardware on the back of the artwork, if left as is, would make for poor presentation of the piece when hung. Optimizing each piece, ideally in advance of installation day, makes an otherwise good display a great one.

Picture Hanging by a Master Installer

Experience as an art preparator at a major museum (or perhaps a top auction house like Christies or Sotheby’s, or a top gallery like Hauser & Wirth) gives a person the training necessary to properly handle valuable art pieces. But only subsequent years as a private residential art installer would give this person the unique, nuanced skills needed to safely and beautifully display art and other decorative wall pieces in finer homes.

Also, many if not most art handlers spend a good part of their day with crating and trucking duties, while hanging the piece is just the final task. But the art in your home deserves the opposite approach. While pieces can be delivered to your home by any of a number of excellent packing, storage, or transport companies, great installation should be performed or supervised by someone with many thousands of hours doing just that: installing art.

A concierge approach

Like that seasoned pro at a fine hotel who can get you tickets to a sold-out show, arrange for a private driver and a pet sitter, and tell you which of the local restaurants has the best selection of burgundies, when it comes to displaying your art someone has to know how to handle each of what may be dozens of components, both the common and the unexpected. How to get a rush job on framing twenty photos. Which restorer can repair a tear you just discovered on a hundred year old painting. How to handle a last-minute delivery of an artwork, get it uncrated, notice a large scratch in the frame’s finish, address the scratch because that piece needs to be up in time for tomorrow’s dinner for twelve, get the piece perfectly hung and the large crate removed from sight.

In homes, every installation of art, photos, or other wall treasures is different. The components needed for a smooth picture-hanging experience vary (sometimes wildly) not just from house to house but room to room and piece to piece. To make a flawless presentation of all the pieces in your home, someone has to be able to efficiently address any situation that might arise.

Take a look at our About page. I think you will like what Erik Story Art Services brings to the table, and you won’t have to be the one wearing those many hats when it comes to having your collection arranged and installed beautifully.