Hanging Art
Hanging art is a relatively straightforward process once you understand a few basic principles and know a few techniques and tools that will make the process go smoothly. Working in the Landmark Gallery at Texas Tech University School of Art has given me the opportunity to participate in a number of show installations, where I have learned several methods of art hanging that definitely speed up the process.
Why I Do Not like Picture Wires
I was busy lighting a show in the student wing of the Landmark Gallery. I was up on the ladder, fussing with a light can, trying to get it just right. Suddenly, there was a crash right beside me. (I hate crashes near me during installations of shows) Makes me jump 10 feet, because I am usually deep into the "lighting mode" a special sort of mental place I go. It is really sort of a meditative-creative place where I go. Lighting is an art, my friends.
Anyway, there was a crash while I was 8 feet off the ground, and after my heart is once again beating normally, I look to see that a rather large painting has fallen to the ground and is lying face down on the brick floor. We inspect it, and find that the screw holding the wire was woefully inadequate. It was barely long enough to go through the wire wound around it, and into the wooden frame.
The pros of wires. You can hang them faster than other methods. The cons. They usually hang from one wall hanger. If it gives way, down goes your artwork. They easily tilt and are hard to keep level. They always try to tilt away from the wall, which I do not like, either.
The D Ring Art Hanger
Many times in the Landmark we have received paintings with wires, that we have rehung, with our own method, which is using D-ring hangers. They look like this (shown on the back of my wall sculpture):
Find them online easily. Do a Google search on: D ring picture hangers. I have searched for and added links here on this page in the past, but often the links change, so it is easier to do a Google search.
These hangers work great for stretcher frame / canvas paintings, too. We mount one on each side...for narrow frames, or box type artwork, there are smaller, narrow d ring hangers available. The pros are several. Once the art is mounted level, it stays put. There is practically no tilting away from the wall. The mounting is more secure because the hangers have two, or more screws. Also, if one side failed for some reason, the other side might hold. The failure rate for the one side must be small - in my experience it has not happened as long as the Floreat type wall hangers (scroll to bottom of this page to see Floreat) and d ring hangers are properly installed.
A Common Mistake is Hanging Shows TOO HIGH!
At the gallery we hang most art at a 57" center. (Before I continue, I must tell you that at the Underwood Center for Fine Arts, the standard is 60") This means measuring from the floor to the center of each artwork. This is about standard in the gallery world. If you hang it too much higher, it will look good for people like myself (I'm 6'4" tall) but for most people it will be hung too high. THE TEMPTATION IS TO HANG ART TOO HIGH!!! I've seen this happen over and over! Entire shows hung at a high level is great for me and my Texas-sized buddies! HAHAHAHA But even in Texas, the average person will be happy with art hung from a 56" to 60" center. At first, this may seem too low! IT IS NOT TOO LOW!
This is a good rule for hanging art in a residential setting, or office setting as well. There is also a temptation to hang art too high in order to light a certain way; to avoid "unsightly" shadows from track lights. We have problems with certain tracks that are installed too close to the walls in certain areas. Believe me I understand this. Some artists will try to light from the center track and hang the art quite high. The high hanging is to avoid the problem with lighting from far away. That creates another problem of having the shadows of viewers heads in the way when they are trying to view the artwork. No perfect solution. If you think you know more than 99.9% of galleries and museums, go ahead. Hang the art 6 feet off the ground and light from 8 feet away. There will be no weird shadows. People will enjoy your artwork and leave with aching necks from looking up at a weird angle at your creations.
The height hanging issue came up some time ago, with a particular grad student and her wonderful photography show. Even though the gallery director, Joe Arredondo told her the correct height for art hanging, the end result was not quite successful. She did not have too much experience with hanging art shows, and when it came time for the actual "art going up on the walls" perhaps things seemed too low to her. Or, perhaps, she did not know about the "string across the wall" technique below.
One of the walls was a collection of approximately 20 art photographs of varying sizes, mostly small to medium in size. She hung them in a large group, with some above, some below, in an artistic fashion. The end result was good...
BUT...hung somewhat too high overall...if you have a hanging issue such as this, be sure to employ the string method.
"Hanging art to the correct height" formula:
1. Measure up from the floor - 57" or whatever "center" you are using.
2. Subtract 1/2 of the height of the art work from the 57".
3. Add back the distance to the wire or the hangers on the back of the painting. (hint - this doesn't really work with very large artwork - you will have to use your "artistic eye!)
String Method
Hint - If you have several artworks to hang, such as a show, or group of artworks hung together which will not be linear, but hang as a group, use the string method:
Stretch a string at the correct height across the entire wall. Use push pins to secure it to the wall. They will leave holes in the wall, but minimal and easy to cover with a little spackle on your finger. If the wall is rather long, the string will droop in the center, so you may need to use one or more push pins to ensure the height of the string.
For a grouping of several artworks, you can then use the string as a guide to "center" the entire group at the proper level.
Laser Guided Hanging
If you have more complex art to hang, such as multiple pieces grouped together, it can be more tricky, especially if they are identical. In this case a tripod-mounted laser-level is a great tool. They have really come down in price, and are worth it if you do a lot of art hanging. A wall-mounted laser level will work, but has some issues, though you can get one for around $50 or so.
Hanging Large Art
Just hanging a couple of pieces of art? It's still a good idea to try to keep to the 57" center of the artwork rule, unless the artwork is quite large. Then you have to make allowances. For some of these you will have to use your "artistic eye." You can do it! Remember not to hang the art too high! This seems to often happen with inexperienced art hangers.
Large art can become an engineering project. If it is wall sculpture, wood or metal, becoming rather heavy, you will definitely get into the area of serious art hanging. It certainly can be accomplished safely and securely. The wall hangers described in this article will hold art up to 75 pounds, which is often rather large art. Two hangers, holding up a 150 pound art on the wall, would generally be a quite large painting. Metal sculpture certainly would be a different subject altogether.
I have mounted wall sculptures of wood up to 8 feet across. The weighed approximately 150 pounds, or more. We estimated the weight judging by the amount of wood each piece contained. They did get heavy in a hurry when they were being mounted on a wall. A 3/4" plywood plate, spanning approximately 48" x 14" was screwed securely into the wooden 2x4 studs of the gallery walls, ( and residtial walls of a collector who purchased one of them ). 6 drywall screws 2-1/2 inches long held the plate in place, and the piece itself was held by very big lag screws mounted into the plywood plate. The sculpture ( bas-relief painting ). had homemade hangers of 1/8" steel, with a hole driled in it for the lag screws. This method has securely held up such large sculptures very securely.
Any artworks smaller than this, in weight or size can be mounted with correspondingly smaller hangers.
Wall Hangers
The type of wall hangers you pick is worth consideration. There is often a tendency by many people to use nails, screws and hangers that are too large for the job, because of their fear of precious artwork crashing to the ground. This is a very understandable fear. The large wall pieces I just described in the large art hanging section will actually hang on two drywall screws. This is amazing to me, and to other people. They are rather large artworks in person. But, I have twice had them fall off the wall when made stupid art moves. I often tried to move them in my studio by myself. They are really too heavy for one person, and back has never really forgiven me for this injustice! But I was working on several for a show, and I had my "reasons." So I came up with a technique for lowering one side first and then the other. This actually worked to an extent.
Except that drywall screws are really not very big and are brittle metal. They were fine as long as the artworks were simply hanging from them. But the shifting and shearing motions that happened while I was trying to move them by myself ( with no helpers to lift them on and off ) caused the screws to shear off, and twice I watched the other side of the artworks fall to the studio floor and "bounce a little." The damage was quite minimal, and I am glad my studio has hardwood floors because the wooden slats gave the bounce. I think a concrete floor has less inherent bounce!
In the Landmark Gallery we prefer Floreat brand (or similar) hangers. Do a search on the Dick Blick art materials website for "floreat hangers" and you will find them. (a Google search will find other similar brands, too) They use tiny carbon steel nails which make extremely small holes in the wall. In spite of their small nail size, they hold a lot of weight. The "two nail" size holds 50 pounds, three nail size holds 75 pounds, and there are smaller load-bearing sizes available.
They are quite easy to install in a wall, using a hammer. Other brands can be found, designed on the same principle, if you are unable to locate Floreat. You can probably find the Floreat brand or another similar brand at your local home improvement store. Or if you don't want to use them, you can certainly use the typical type of wall hangers. But the Floreat style are the top of the line, and will cause minimal damage to your wall. They are reasonably priced as well.
Patching Walls When the Show is Over
I have worked out ways to minimize the work of patching walls after a show. This is especially good for gallery walls, that take more abuse than the average neighborhood wall. Shows often go up and down every month (or every day or week in an art school teaching gallery).
The spackle spatula works quite well for covering nail holes, especially nail holes made by the Floreat style of hangers. I cut these in half (on a bandsaw - gotta love a bandsaw) so I get two of them out of one spatula. After I cut it across the middle, I round off the cut corners on a sander. Voila' two excellent spackle applicators!
These ordinary "plastic burnishers" (search keywords for Google) are rather soft plastic and made for rubbing down vinyl signage. They are great for the spackle, because...my spackle application involved putting on the spackle as minimally as possible, and smoothing it out with my spackle tool, so that there is almost almost no sanding to do afterwards. I could use a putty knife, of course. I've used one many times. But puty knives don't have the "give" of the vinyl burnishers which allow the burnisher to get the putty so flat so easily. And, putty knives often have a problem with marking the wall with metal marks. I don't like that. Of course, even with the plastic spackle spatula, if the art is hung with larger nails or screws, there may be some sanding.
Plastic Burnisher Source - pack of 5 for $10 They wear down with use, so this is a good deal, I think.
I recommend staying away from larger nails and screws except when they MUST be used. That is much less often than most people think. As I have already discussed, the Floreat hangers will hold quite a lot of weight (we have tested them) and do quite minimal damage to a wall. This is what you want - not a big honker hole in the drywall that is hard to cover up again. The smoother the walls the better. No one wants to look at scarred walls, believe me. And, sanding walls makes white dust. Personally, I am not fond of dust around art, or galleries, so I try to minimize it.
Sometimes, larger holes are inevitable, when a screw or larger nail must be used for special hanging situations. These often leave a puckered hole upon removal. I've found that a good method for repair of these wall wounds is to take a small ball peen hammer and put the peen against the puckered hole. Then take another hammer and tap against the flat end of the peen hammer. This will push in the pucker and leave a divit (small depression). This can be filled with spackle. It might take two applications and a little bit of sanding.
Repainting gallery walls can be tricky, too. I try to put minimal paint over the holes. If it takes two applications, that's fine. Sometimes, if it is a large area, I use a roller to mimic the wall texture. We have found that claims by paint mixers to match paint are exaggerated. The fancy computers are unable to achieve the same exact color twice. So, we buy paint in 5 gallon buckets. Our Landmark gallery can be fully painted with 5 gallons with some paint left over for about a year's worth of touch-ups, sometimes a bit more. Once that paint is used up, we order another 5 gallons, of the same (close to the same, never exact) of paint, and repaint the gallery. It's the only way for fussy gallery curators (and lighting techs, too). You may come up with a better plan. If you do, please email us. Painting a room in your house is not the same as painting a gallery.
This does not entirely cover the subject of hanging art, but will get your art displayed with a professional appearance, without too many holes in the wall. If you have any questions, (ESPECIALLY about hanging larger artworks!) problems, or suggestions, please email me.
Floreat hangers are available in 50, 30, 20, 10lb "load-bearing sizes."
