I was recently asked to loan one of my paintings for a company art lobby and I went into a frenzied state of deciding the right frame for the picture. I searched for about a week without too much success until I was lucky to chance on a dark wood frame. One of these days I will have to lug the painting, frame and all to the corporate building where it will hang for a year.
This set me thinking on the following:
-Do you decide beforehand the ‘right’ frame (that in your opinion is the most suitable one for a particular painting/photo) or do you ask your client for suggestions or is it a mixture of both?
-Is the whole framing thing passé now? I was in a couple of Chelsea galleries last week and not a single oil was framed (the artists did not even bother to hide the fact that the edges were dirty from all the wear and tear)? Is that a new trend?
I would be very interested in your thoughts…
Karl always asked me about the relative size of my paintings (the internet does not do a proper job of projecting the size..) This is a picture of my three year old son posing next a couple of my ‘unframed’ paintings.
But Sunil, for all we know, your son could be six inches tall:)
Sunil, I am rambling here. Rather than addressing the frame issue, I have been wondering about the distances from which pictures will viewed. You mentioned that one of your pictures will be exhibited in a lobby. The pictures that you show here are also quite large, suggesting that they too may be shown better on the wall of a spacious building rather than a small apartment. While a still life of the size of your picture may look good in a dining room, your portraits would make too strong a statement in a small room. I presume that you would like to see them viewed from a larger distance.
I had thought about the same issue when I looked at an exhibition of C. Still’s paintings where an entire wall is dedicated to single painting.
Presumably, each picture has its optimal viewing distance. As David commented recently:
But then, as Leslie just said, one also needs to appreciate the textures which would mean viewing the picture from different distances.
A year ago, I felt bored with a Haquette in my living room. I stored it for a while and then put it on a wall in hallway. Now passing closely by the picture, I have again fallen in love with it because of its subtle colors and textures, only appreciated at close distance.
Here finally is my question: Starting to paint a picture, whether abstract or representational, does the artist decides beforehand whether it is for intimate viewing within the private home of a middle-class person or for viewing at a larger distance, in a museum, public lobby or a private mansion?
Presumably, most artists would not have the hubris of a C. Still and expect to have an entire museum dedicated to them.
Most of the paintings and prints I see in galleries are framed, ready to be sold complete as is. It makes sense to me that a well-chosen frame helps a potential buyer to visualize how the artwork will appear in their home, office, etc. I don’t know the common policy, but I would assume a gallery would sell at a reasonable price without the frame or with a different one if the customer desired.
With photographs, I think a frame is essential in even a coffee shop setting. Photos are just too lightweight as objects otherwise. There is typically also a mat that helps isolate the photograph from its surroundings, so that it can be appreciated on its own. Frames do not usually call attention to themselves. However, I violated this rule with my current show at a co-op. I covered simple wood frames with a Thai paper that incorporated leaf fragments. The natural materials and the handmade look were, I thought, appropriate to both the show setting and the photographs, which were woodland scenes from my Sourdough Trail series.
Steve,
Please show us one of your Sourdough Trail photos with such a frame.
On the size question, I enjoy viewing an artwork from various distances. I always want to examine it as close as possible, even if that’s not the usual or intended viewing distance. But I also like to see differently, from a distance, when main gestures dominate. I like to consider how large and small scale work together. I am frustrated when I can’t approach a work closely.
OK, since you insist… but it’s an embarrassingly bad snapshot. I happened to make one because a customer asked about it once.
Thanks Steve,
I do like the mute colors of the frame a lot.
Very funny, Leslie.
Birgit,
Yes, you are right – a lot of my ‘face paintings’ would not be suitable for a small room (not that I paint these with the final location in mind)…
My paintings disintegrate into a mass of messy colors when you approach it up close – best viewed about 10 feet away.
Personally I view artworks from a distance and from real close. From a distance such that I can discern the general statement and larger picture (pun intended) and I get closer (actually really close) to experience the texture, thickness and the technique used by the artist in creating the piece. Steve put it very well when he said that he gets frustrated if he is not allowed too close to a piece… I experience the same pangs…
Steve,
I actually like the frame you created… It accentuates the ‘Trail’ theme.
Additionally, I would be interested in responses to Birgit’s question when she asked if an artist decides beforehand where the picture is destined for…
There are several art worlds out there, and I think the conventions are pretty different depending on which one you’re operating in.
Unframed paintings with dirty edges are pretty standard in the contemporary urban art world. This convention goes back at least to the Abstract Expressionist painters of the mid-twentieth century, though they’d also often just nail crude lattice strips to the edges of their paintings, and let buyers deal w/ proper framing if they wanted to. Works on paper are generally framed, but I’ve also seen them just pinned to the wall.
I never frame my paintings or linoleums. The linoleums are braced. The large ones show the bracing at the edge, and the smaller ones have it inset so the image floats. With paintings I generally paint the edges a neutral color, which I find less distracting than showing all the drips, but that’s a personal preference and certainly not required.
As usual, Sunil, you’ve got a batch of questions here — and then Birgit had to throw in a couple more.
Most textile artists that I know have a specific placement in mind for their work, even before they begin. But that’s because they can place in craft fairs as well as high-end art venues, and there’s a huge difference in what will be acceptable where.
I don’t do this, but that’s because I’m trying hard to get my intentions to match the outcome (and I don’t need the money) I don’t do craft or boutique work. However, I am very aware of the venue when I start looking for an exhibit venue, but that’s always after the fact. Big stuff doesn’t fit into small spaces and the reverse. The consideration of the space and the work are really important to me, which may be why I don’t find Still’s insistence on control irritating. I find it rather charming, in fact, especially given the insistent nature of marketing these days.
As for frames, with textiles, the issue of framing has a lovely flexibility. Conventional bed quilts have a 1/4 inch (approximate) binding, a convention that derives from practical considerations — when the edges of the bedding got worm, you could remove the binding and sew on a new one without damaging the body of the quilt.
This got translated into a kind of frame around art quilts, which works OK. Very quickly, however, people realized that the edges could be “faced” — that is, turned under, so the image appears to continue beyond the edge of the visible work. There are other variations — a close satin stitch, for example, all along the edges that closes unobtrusively or obtrusively.
With small pieces, I almost always use frames because of what we call the “hot pad” or “placemat” effect — if you don’t frame small textile works, someone might take the roast out of the oven with them. I have also mounted textiles by sewing or velcroing them to mat board; in these instances I generally burn the edges to seal them.
If I frame textiles, I prefer floating them without glass.
So I suppose I would have to say that for me, size determines something about framing, intent comes next, and efficiency and material concerns (ease of storing and delivery) also enter into it.
I do feel sorry for artists who are required not only to frame but to use glass or plastic and then ship their work. Textile wall art is lots easier to send across country.
Sunil,
This is a great and frustrating topic. We touched on it once before in To Frame or Not to Frame?
Intrepid art collector Lisa Hunter said
Karl said,
I’ve started a series of paintings (six so far) which are large (for me at least) and I have no intention of framing them because I know from experience how difficult and expensive it is to frame a picture properly. Framing is vitally important and also a good way to distract yourself from being a painter. I think the folks in Chelsea are doing little more than making a virtue of necessity. Not framing is certainly nothing new…
Although I read the size of your paintings earlier, I am impressed to see them in context.
So, did you see any good art in New York?
Steve,
I like your frame. It reminds me of some frames of Jan van Eyck (c. 1437) that are painted to look like marble.
Karl,
Good thoughts on framing… I agree with you completely when you say that pictures without frames hung close together tend to influence each other to a stronger degree than if the same were framed..
I will wait patiently to see your new series of six paintings…
As regards Chelsea, I need to plan my visit a little better. The day before, I decided to randomly step into a couple of galleries and was not very impressed with the art and some pretentious people that I met there…
Yesterday I went to Ed Winkleman’s gallery and I do have good things to say about his place (although it is in the extreme end of the lower west side). The person at the desk was very knowledgeable about the artworks presented and mainly the artworks also were very good… (The artist represented there was Christopher Lowry Johnson in the exhibition titled ‘Chorus’).
I went to the bookstore and have armed myself with a gallery guide to New York – so that I do not do any random stops at unknown galleries…
In “The Invention of Art” I read the following about Leonardo da Vinci and his co-painter on The Virgin of the Rocks: