Very early in my career I worked for Kit Kemp OBE and her husband Tim. The Kemps were founders of the Firmdale Hotel Group and were opening their first property, the Dorset Square Hotel in London. The hotel was a series of five Regency five-storey townhouses. Every room and public area were individually decorated using a combination of contemporary and antique furniture with rich upholstery fabrics.

Dorset Square was the original home of Lord’s Cricket Ground which was an inspiration for the Hotel’s interior. Antique cricket balls were used as doorknobs for the guestroom doors.

The Kemps had a large collection of art from all periods, by established and upcoming artists. Framed painting and etchings were displayed throughout the hotel. Willow cricket bats were sent off to different artists to embellish and create individual pieces. Kit believed that anything could be framed! Over the years I have framed all sorts of things, from antique keys, to my grandfather’s war medals.

I am often asked to provide advice to clients about the correct height and position to hang their artwork.

There are rules that must be followed when hanging artwork, and there are rules that can be broken. I like to hang smaller pieces of artwork as a stack, one above the other, on small wall spaces. Larger pieces of artwork can be hung over sofas and other pieces of furniture. With a single large piece of art it’s important to hang it with about a third of the image above your standing eye height.

A French or “salon hang” can be particularly effective when you have a number of pieces of artwork to hang together. If there is a similar theme amongst the images or if the same frame colour and profile are used, you have a cohesive collection. That’s not to say that a number of different frames or artworks can’t be placed together.

I always start with paper cut-outs the same dimensions as the frames. I attach them to the proposed wall with Blu-tack, moving around until satisfied that the positions are correct. This can be time-consuming, but avoids artwork being hung incorrectly, which just looks wrong.

Published in the June 2021 Issue of The Trentham Trumpet