Moving home? tips for taking care of your artwork

Moving home is an exciting time for any household! We have a few quick tips & hints for the safe transport of your artwork & finding the perfect place to hang in your new home.

Careful packaging of your art is important in making sure no damage is incurred in transit.  Take care to ensure that the corners of each piece are individually protected – you can purchase foam or cardboard corners that will help provide protection. Each piece should then be framed in several layers of bubble wrap & shrink wrapped or sellotaped to hold the protection in place.

It is worth making sure any Certificates of Authenticity often found on the back of the artwork is firmly secured for the journey – these are important documents which attest to the provenance of your artwork and should be safely guarded.

Once packaged it is worth taking the time to add Fragile stickers to each piece and labelling so that you can recall both the artist and the individual artwork after the move.  It is surprising how paintings can all look very similar behind layers of bubble wrap!

On the day of the move take extra care for larger framed artwork with glass which can be particularly fragile or box canvas pieces.  Inadvertently resting heavy objects against canvas artwork can lead to indentations that may be difficult to remove.  Avoid using any newspaper to protect the work as the ink may rub off on the art.

Whilst moving home can be a very busy time, it is worth taking an inventory of your art collection at this point.  This will help to ensure that you have adequate insurance in place to provide the necessary cover should the worst happen on move day.  It will also help you to make sure that your contents insurance is enough to meet your needs in your new home.  There are specialist insurance companies who offer separate policies for artwork with a market value replacement provision which can be really key for any artwork that has appreciated in value during the time of your ownership.  When you look at your art collection as a portfolio the overall value very quickly adds up.  It is always worth retaining any receipts or documentation from the art gallery in a safe place to support the value of the artwork.

When we move home we often find the age & style of our new property is quite different to our old home.  This may have an impact on the artwork that you surround yourself with – it also provides the ideal opportunity to look at each piece in your collection with fresh eyes.

Looking at the same paintings in the same location each day can make us blind to the detail & beauty of a piece.  It is always worth considering moving art around at home – whether moving house or not, a fresh spot with different lighting both by day & night can soon transform a piece.

For paper art, signs of damage & wear & tear to the mounts should be checked.  You might find that the acid in the environment has discoloured the mount around limited editions leaving it with a yellow hue.  Now may be a good time to find a reputable framer near your new home to remount the art & provide renewed protection to the painting. 

For much older pieces you will also find that improvements in the technology behind the manufacture of glass may provide much better options for protecting your art.  Artglass is now available which significantly reduces reflection but also minimises the impact of the glass giving a much truer reflection of the art beneath.  Whilst Artglass is a more expensive option for more valuable pieces – both sentimentally & in terms of market value – you might find it an investment worth making for the improvement it makes to the overall finish.

A frame can transform any artwork, the mouldings in your old home may not fit in your new home for many reasons or you might just want to have a fresh look for your favourite artist.  It never ceases to amaze me how much difference the right moulding can make to artwork – that said there is often more than one frame for every picture both of which will bring out the skill of the artist.

Give consideration to pieces that work well together & the overall palette of colour in a room when deciding where to hang your art in your new home.  Art can introduce colour & inspiration to a neutrally coloured room – or provide a sense of calm in another room.   Does the style of artwork suit the room – you might choose to hang seaside images in your bathroom for example.  The dining room might be best suited to darker more sultry artwork – wine glasses potentially or a Fabian Perez figurative piece?

What pieces will you use to create a focus in each room & where should that focus be?  The living room might have a mantelpiece that is perfect for hanging a landscape image above.  Art can be a great talking point but also a representation of your character – what we choose to hang in our homes will often reflect our personalities, our hopes & aspirations.  This is particularly true in your hall way – the first & sometimes only space the outside world sees – what are you going to choose to hang here? 

As always the Rose Gallery team are available to provide support from finding new artwork for you new home or helping you put insurance in place for your existing portfolio of art.  Please do get in touch if you think we can help in any way.