Many designers will give you a guideline in inches or centimetres from the floor or from the top of furniture, but if you aim for eye level, you’ll be in the ballpark. If you’re from a family of Amazons, your eye level will be different than mine. But as long as I don’t need a stepstool to admire your painting and you don’t have to bend at the waist every time you want to look at it, it will be fine.
Some pieces placed above furniture may have to be hung a little higher, and some in groups may have to go lower. The tops of the highest frames ought to be essentially the same height around the room, for a balanced look. Occasions may arise when the eye-level guideline will need to be abandoned, and here’s an example.
After years of dabbling in the hobby of abstract painting, my first work worthy of hanging in public view was a big one. At one metre by two metres, it was meant for a huge feature wall leading up to a top-floor addition to our home. The nine-metre wall required a very high ladder, to which I have a proven allergy, so I hired a museum installation company to make quick and safe work of the job.
A staircase led up and away from the wall, and two landings further complicated it. The top half of the wall jutted out farther than the bottom half. This led to some careful consideration and discussion about where the big painting should be hung. Finally, we all agreed that the piece should be centred vertically and horizontally on the wall’s upper half. The pros had it secured in a few minutes and even complimented the artist’s work. (I didn’t tell them it was mine!)
Most art-hanging experiences aren’t this complicated and some are purely a matter of taste and lifestyle. I’m not a fan of filling a living room with family photos. Too often they end up as a jumble of gift frames and out-of-focus snapshots in a misguided bid to make sure everyone is represented. You’re as proud of your tribe as I am of mine, but I keep photos of them in a more private area of my home. Most people are too polite to say this, but sometimes it’s just not that interesting to be led through a large pictorial family tree of people whom one will never likely meet. A collection of professional shots in a collage photo frame might be an attractive compromise and a briefer way to introduce the clan.
A collage of separate pieces is a nice way to fill a wall along a stairway with photographs or prints. Achieve a gallery look by mounting pictures of various sizes and colours in similar frames. They don’t have to be exactly the same but if they are all black with white mattes, for example, there will be enough continuity to make it work. Space them evenly, and if you plan to build on a collection, begin by filling in a line along eye level and continue from there.
It doesn’t matter if you want to display an original Picasso or a finger painting by your toddler, if you call it “art,” it deserves to be properly displayed for the ultimate enjoyment.