Famous art prints: how to bring the museum home

Why famous paintings work so well at home

A painting that people have loved for generations has already passed the hardest test there is: nobody got tired of it. That is exactly what you want from something you will see every morning. A famous painting also brings a story into the room – a summer window in Collioure, a starry night in Provence, a Swedish painter who asked for her abstract work to stay hidden for twenty years after her death.

It is also easier to style than you might think. An old master looks fresh in a pared-back modern room, because the contrast makes both more interesting. A Monet above a sleek desk or a Matisse beside a bouclé chair doesn’t feel like a museum shop. It feels personal.

How to choose a painting

Start with what you love rather than what you think you ought to hang. Then narrow it down in three steps.

Color first. Pick a painting that shares one or two colors with the room – the sofa, a rug, the wooden floor. Monet’s blues and greens calm a bedroom, while Matisse’s pinks and oranges wake up a kitchen.

Then mood. Impressionist landscapes are soft and quiet, modernist cut-outs are playful, and Klimt’s gold is pure drama. Think about how you want to feel in the room, not just how it should look.

Then the wall. Large, busy paintings need a calm wall with space around them. Line drawings and small studies are happy above a desk, in a hallway or on a shelf.

Four places to start:

Exhibition posters: the painting plus the type

Many of our famous art prints are designed like the posters you bring home from a big exhibition: the painting, a generous border and the artist’s name in clean type, sometimes with the title, a museum or a year.

The type does more than you’d think. It turns an old painting into a graphic object, links it to the books and lamps around it, and gives a modern room something to hold on to. It also makes the print easier to mix: an exhibition poster sits as happily next to a photograph as it does next to another painting.

Some of them are the real thing. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner designed the poster below himself, for his 1933 exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bern.

Old masters in a modern room

The trick to making a famous painting feel at home is contrast. Let the art be the old thing in the room and keep everything around it simple: a pale wall, clean-lined furniture and natural materials.

Repeat one color. Pull a single shade from the painting into a cushion, a vase or a throw. It ties the art to the room without turning it into a theme.

Mix the centuries. Hang a Monet next to a modern graphic print, or a Klimt next to a line drawing. The pair looks curated rather than bought as a set.

Or stay with one artist. Two prints by the same painter always belong together, even in different sizes. One large and one small is the easiest way to do it. More in our Henri Matisse collection.

Three ready-made walls from our inspiration pages, with every print, size and frame picked for you:

Which frame suits a famous painting?

Forget the idea that a masterpiece needs a heavy gilded frame. At home, the frame should suit the room as much as the painting.

Oak. Warm and natural. It softens strong colors and suits impressionist landscapes, Matisse interiors and anything near wooden furniture.

Black. Crisp and graphic. It sharpens deep colors – Van Gogh’s blues, Klimt’s gold – and makes an exhibition poster look as if it came straight from the gallery.

White. Light and modern. Around a bold cut-out or a poster with a wide border, white lets the artwork float on the wall.

Classical. Want the full museum feeling? An ornate, vintage-style frame in gold, silver or walnut does it. More in our guide to choosing the right frame.