Below A gallery wall mixing picture and
frame styles. Opposite Pandora’s picture
is enhanced by its statement framemount and frame double acts. “Even the most ordinary
picture can be enhanced by a wonderful frame,” agrees
Adam Ellis, a graphic artist who collects antique frames.
He has hundreds propped up in his giant, visual feast
of a studio, where he also prints his own supersized
designs on printers the size of sunbeds.
I’m not alone in my love of frames. There has been a
huge surge in the number and variety of off-the-peg
frames available because of the growth in the affordable
online art market. Small businesses such as Wondering
People, Domenica Marland, Iota Edit, Petri Prints and
Partnership Editions offer affordable artwork from as
little as £40. “It’s also partly due to the growing accessi-
bility of art prints being available in standard sizes,”
Saunt says. Artists such as Ellis will let you order his
designs in any size, meaning you can fit it to your space,
while websites such as eFrame let you customise your
frame to the millimetre. Gone are the days when your
only option other than a professional picture framer
was an A4 clip frame from Snappy Snaps.
There are many brilliant options online, but it’s true
that there’s nothing quite like an hour spent shim-
mying your picture into 50 different frames, to find the
perfect — and not always obvious — fit. I save the
professional framer for my most special pictures, like a
photograph of me with my mum. “Come with an open
mind,” advises David Lacy, owner of the Lacy Gallery
on Westbourne Grove in west London, widely known
in interiors circles for sourcing unusual frames. After
all what is perfectly hideous to some might be utterly
charming to you. “Frames can also be used to express
our personal aesthetic,” says Kate Bryan, head of collec-
tions at the Soho House Group. “I remember seeing
an exhibition of Sir Elton John and David
photography collection at the Tate Modern — room
after room of quiet black-and-white imagery with the
wildest kinds of gold frames.” Not for everyone, sure —
but so on brand.
WELL HUNG
How to frame like a pro
Scuffs don’t matter, but joints do “Charity shops can be a
treasure trove of beautiful picture frames, but always
check that the joints at the corners are tight,” Saunt says.I’m a huge fan of framing posters You can buy brilliant
ones from the Royal Academy gift shop, the Tate and
King & McGaw. Ellis recommends “a bold frame choice
to ‘customise’ a piece that exists in multiple”. Try
eFrame’s lacquered numbers, which are a fraction of
the cost of lacquer from a picture framer.Bigger is not always better “One of my favourite exam-
ples of this is when we frame teeny tiny antique litho-
graphs the size of playing cards,” Saunt says — these
are seriously impactful “when you float mount that
little print in a colourful box frame”.Get painting If you have a steady hand, why not buy a
tester pot in a colour you love (I try and pick out a colour
that exists in the picture, even if it’s just a dot, or in theOval frames,
£135 each;
matildagoad.comThe Sunday Times Style • 35