Evening Standard - ES Magazine
THE FRAME GAME
Properly housing your art is both an act of decoration and protection, so specialist Islington framer Tim Blake lets me in on his secrets
One of my favourite parts of finishing a project is hanging pictures, whether it’s a fashionable ‘salon hang’ or a bold, single image. Hanging pictures is the domestic equivalent of dipping into your jewellery box and deciding what to wear. Framing has two purposes: decoration and protection. Who hasn’t lugged around a favourite print only to find it torn by the time you feel grown up enough to frame it? I asked Tim Blake of Darbyshire in Islington, which frames and installs work for major collectors, for a few words of advice.
‘Be mindful of where the artwork is destined to hang and take full advantage of preservation framing materials such as UV filtering glazing,’ Blake says. ‘Keep an open mind; if your framer offers bespoke wood-working, staining or gilding, you can have a lot of collaborative fun and be very much part of the framing journey.’
‘For posters and prints I like what I refer to as “academic” framing — a simple dark, oak-stained frame and depending on the size of the image, no mount. If you are going to group a lot of pictures together mix up the framing materials to give a sense of an accumulated collection. For more traditional work I like to try to match the date of the with the frame although its important not to be too particular about this. Pleasing proportion matters more than slavish ‘period’ correctness.
Framing is always an unexpected extra but it’s worth budgeting for and getting right. It can elevate your well-worn Athena tennis player to centre court status.