As a decorator, I can’t expect my clients to agree with everything I recommend. Sometimes I just need to humbly agree to disagree.
Take, for example, my recent experience with my client Jodi Dady, an art adviser, who lives in a postwar apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side with her husband and two teenage children. I admire Jodi’s dislike of clutter (we should all be as disciplined as she is!) and I respect her acute fear of pattern and most colors (after a bit of prodding, she acquiesced to using touches of deep turquoise to enliven her otherwise all white-and-pale-gray apartment); however, when it comes to hanging — and living with — art, she and I have divergent opinions.
Jodi is in the art business and is a collector of works by contemporary and emerging artists. She has always viewed her art (and that of her clients) as the most important element in the room and believes that it should be treated as such. Her perspective is that of a gallerist: Art should be hung on white walls with nothing to impede the full visibility of the entire work as, she says, “the artist intended it.”
My task as Jodi’s decorator was to upgrade the furnishings to complement — but never overshadow — her collection of paintings, prints and drawings. This was challenging for me. I like to integrate art with other objects; I don’t mind when a lampshade overlaps the corner of a photograph or if a painting hangs below the horizontal line of a dining table.
I have a recipe: I hang a piece of art above a side table or chest, then I place a lamp (typically on the right side of the table), a stack of books and/or a box, plus one or two objects. My mix of items is usually eclectic; I like to pair modern lighting or art with antique furniture and vice versa.
More often than not, people hang art too high or too spaced out, or, reluctant to put holes in their walls, make the worst mistake: not hanging anything at all. Art ties a room together, adds interest and drama, and fills out empty spaces. Hung properly, art draws your eye up, down and around a room. So follow these two pieces of advice.
The two essentials
Get the height right. Pictures should be hung so that the center of a picture is at eye level; for most people that means the middle of the picture should be about 5 to 5 1/2 feet from the floor. I say “most people” because one of my dearest friends is 5-foot-11, and every time she is at my house, she complains that the art is hung too low. In general, hang art about 3 to 6 inches above a piece of furniture.
But don’t worry too much about math. In general, I rely more on my eye than I do on a tape measure to figure out where to hang a picture. I suggest using a tape measure and level to get started (I especially like the measuring tapes that verbally tell you the measurement and levels that have a built-in laser light), then eyeball it from there. Hanging art is often a two-person job, so make sure you have someone there to help you.
