Illuminating Thoughts on Lighting Art OR How Not to Ruin Your Investment
Light is an obsession in the art world. Artist’s studios are designed around the all-important north facing window to harness the most constant natural light source. Curators can spend days, sometimes weeks, adjusting and tweaking lighting to achieve the best possible look and feel for a show. But as important as light is to the creation and enjoyment of art, it can also physically damage and destroy the objects we love.
To help art connoisseurs properly light, protect and preserve your collection, we talked to gallerists, museum curators, and artists to pull together tips, tricks, and strategies to not only show off your collection but keep it intact for years to come.
NOTES FROM THE INSIDERS: TIPS AND TRICKS
Gallerist, Linda Cook, of David Cook Galleries in Denver, works with historic art and textiles. We asked Cook what she most frequently sees as the biggest lighting issues in collectors’ homes.
“The main thing I see are ceiling fixtures mounted too close to the walls,” she says. “When you do that, the light casts a shadow on the art usually from the frame. In a space that has a nine-foot ceiling, I typically suggest having the fixtures three feet from the wall. If you are limited by the width of the ceiling, place fixtures to the side so you can angle the lights at the art.”
When it comes to fixtures, Cook suggests finding the least obtrusive ones with dimmer switches. She also suggests over-doing the lighting. “I have yet to see any house with too much lighting for art. It’s easier to remove bulbs or use lower wattage bulbs than try to add more fixtures after the fact. And having more options will allow you to overlay the light.”
Overlaying light is key to bringing out the nuances of any work of art, but as Cook suggests, it requires more fixtures. The idea is to spotlight or pop an aspect of a painting and then add a flood light or two to illuminate the entire work. “The goal,” Cook says, “is to light the art so it appears to float on the wall.”
CREATING THE DAY YOU WANT
Today’s LED lights come in an overwhelming spectrum of colors, tones, and intensities. To figure out what bulbs are best, we asked landscape artist Len Chmiel to weigh in on the topic. Chmiel is renowned for translating his small on-the-spot paintings created outdoors, in natural light, into gorgeous, poetically subtle statements on a grand scale. We wondered if the light he paints under makes a difference as to how finished paintings look in a collectors’ homes. And, if so what kind of lights should the collector consider for the best optimal effect?
“I believe paintings do show better in natural light,” Chmiel says, but added that, even though he has a huge north light window in his studio, these days he paints under artificial lights. “I’ve covered the window up in favor of 5,000-degree kelvin florescent lights and one 4500-degree LED flood light,” he says.
Wait—what? Florescent lights in an artist’s studio?
“Natural light,” Chmiel explains, “varies throughout the day and makes the painting look different with each variation. In the days before artificial light, north light was the most reliably consistent. Not anymore. Took me years of thinking about that—this is the fourth iteration of my studio lighting and the most successful once I realized I needed to cover the north light window.”
So, what’s the key to buying the right blubs for showing off your art?
“With artificial lights, a CRI (color rendering index) in the high nineties is very important,” he says. “Very high quality (and expensive) LEDs are best, after that high quality fluorescents that are—you guessed it—expensive. Whatever degree kelvin you pick, the higher the temperature and CRI the better. Fiber optic lighting is the very best but that’s still not generally available and it’s pricey, last I checked.”
SUN DAMAGE PREVENTION
It’s true: the sun is hard on your skin and even harder on works of art. The mediums that tend to suffer the most from sun damage are works on paper—prints, photographs and watercolors—while oils, acrylics on canvas, and pastels hold up much better to natural light.
According to master printmaker, Leon Loughridge, dyes used in older works are subject to rapid fading. “Japanese prints pre-1867 were printed with organic dyes,” he explains, “and should never be hung in bright light or under fluorescent lighting. By the 1890’s, artists had switched over to pigment-based inks. Contemporary prints are usually more light stable because of better quality pigments, but there are products in use that are not lightfast, so, when in doubt, the safest thing to do is hang color prints in low light with a UV glazing.”
As an aside, another thing to consider when buying works on paper is what kind of paper was used in the process. Wood pulp-based paper will yellow over time as the wood naturally deteriorates. Cotton fiber paper is much more stable and can withstand fluctuations in temperature and humidity.
And then there are photographs. “Photos and watercolors,” says Denver Art Museum curator of photography, Eric Paddock, “are susceptible to fading and color shifting when they get too much light. They never recover from that.”
In museums lighting specs are more restrictive than most people want at home, mainly because houses have windows and museum galleries don’t. “As a general rule,“ Paddock says, “19th century photographs and color work require lower light levels than black and white pictures. We aim for three to five foot-candles for 19th century prints and 20th century photos on printing-out paper (such as those by Eugene Atget or Linda Connor). Color prints get between five to eight foot-candles. We’ll go a bit higher—up to nine, rarely 10—for black and white prints, provided they are in good condition and don’t exhibit any staining or oxidation. Cyanotype and color Polaroids of all types get only three foot-candles, and we don’t exhibit them for more than six to eight weeks before we rotate them out and replace them with other artworks.”
Basically, says Loughridge, sunlight whether direct or indirect is never a good thing for any works on paper not only because of fading but because light will heat the interior of the frame environment, creating issues that are not healthy for paper.
“Natural light,” echoes Linda Cook, “is the most damaging to art, especially watercolors and aniline dyed textiles. Collectors should protect their art with UV or Museum glass or Museum Plexi.” And she notes, “if your home has a lot of solar gain, consider adding UV protective film on all windows.”
Whether you simply want to enjoy art on your wall or are seriously collecting as an investment, Paddock advises that you take care with the lighting and display. “One good way to do that,” he suggests, “is to collect more pictures than you can have on display at one time and change them seasonally or as the mood strikes. It can be nice, for example, to see landscape pictures that are spacious and full of light during the darkness of wintertime. The other thing is that we don’t really look at our art every day; it fades into the background eventually. That’s a good time to switch things out to get a fresh view of things.”
LIGHTING DOS AND DON’TS (sidebar)
FOR ALL ART:
Avoid direct sunlight.
Avoid bright indirect light from windows.
Keep away from sources of heat and humidity.
The kitchen’s a lousy place for works on paper so is the bathroom.
Rotate your art seasonally and store art not on the walls in a cool, dark, and dry place.
FOR WORKS UNDER GLASS:
Use UV glass or, for photos consider absorbing acrylic instead of glass that contains a dye that fades over time. You’ll want to replace the acrylic every two years or try Optium acrylic, which stays effective longer and eliminates glare and reflections.
CHOOSING THE RIGHT BULBS:
Switch to LEDs for clean, clear, and bright light.
Pay attention to the Color Rendering Index (CRI) of the blub: the higher the CRI, the more accurate the color of the bulb.
Consider kelvins. As a rule, the lower the kelvin number the warmer the light. (Chmiel paints under 5000-kelvins, while Cook uses 2700-kelvins in her gallery.)
| Color Temperature | Light Source |
| 3000-4000 K | Sunrise/Sunset (clear sky) |
| 4000-5000 K | Fluorescent Lamps |
| 5000-5500 K | Electronic Flash |
| 5000-6500 K | Daylight with Clear Sky (sun overhead) |
Turn on the lights before you hang the art to check if the color the light throws is neutral or if it’s changing the wall color too much.
If you are using open backed track lighting, buy painted-back bulbs. They come silver, black, and white and are designed to keep the light from leaking out the back of the fixture.