Notes on finding, buying and living with art, from the gallery.
Living with a work on paper
Drawings, prints and photographs are the gentlest way into collecting and the most sensitive to a careless wall. Light, glass, the mount and the frame, in plain words.
ByErick González
A work on paper is often the first thing a collector buys and the last thing they would sell. It is also the one that asks for a little care, not because paper is fragile, but because it is honest: it shows what the room did to it. Four things decide most of it.
Light
Daylight is the only real enemy. Not a lamp, not a candle: the sun, even reflected, even on a cloudy day, over years. The rule is simple and absolute: no work on paper on a wall the sun touches. A hallway, a bedroom, a room with north light or curtains closed by day is where paper lives longest. If you want a drawing in a bright room, give it the wall the window cannot see.
Glass
The glazing in front of the work is the second decision. Ordinary glass stops almost none of the ultraviolet light; museum glass stops nearly all of it and reflects almost nothing, so the work looks as if it had no glass at all. It costs more, and it is the single most useful thing you can buy for a work on paper. Ask for it by name when you frame, and ask that the glass never touch the paper: a small space, held by the mount, keeps the surface from sticking and the humidity from gathering.
The mount and the frame
Everything that touches the work should be acid-free: the board behind it, the window mount in front of it, the hinges that hold it. Hinges, not glue, and never tape. A good framer knows this without being asked, which is how you recognise one. The frame itself is a matter of taste; the only rule is that it should be the frame of the work, not of the room, so that both can move house together.
Air
Paper breathes with the room. A wall shared with a bathroom, a kitchen or the outside of the house moves between damp and dry every day and the paper moves with it, which is how ripples and foxing begin. An interior wall, away from radiators and air-conditioning vents, is enough. Nothing else is required: no climate control, no vitrine, no anxiety.
Three things collectors learn late
Keep the sheet whole. A print or drawing is never trimmed to fit a frame, however small the margin. The margin is part of the work and part of its value.
Keep the folder. The invoice, the certificate and anything the artist wrote travel with the work; a work on paper changes hands more often than a painting and the folder is what makes each change easy.
Rotate. If you own several works on paper and one wall you love, hang them in turns. Each gets a rest in a drawer, flat, in its acid-free folder, and the wall is never boring.
If you would like company
This is what we do every day from Mexico City: help people find, buy and live with original contemporary art. Book a free 30-minute call, or simply look at the works for sale and write to us about the one that stays with you.
Image: “Composición 05/10” by Pedro Tombo Lomboy, pigment stick and oil stick on paper.
This content is for information and education only and does not constitute financial, investment, legal or tax advice.
Keep reading
- Five minutes in front of a painting
Most people give a work eight seconds. Here is what happens when you give it five minutes: what to look at first, what to look at next, and why it matters before you buy.
- Giving a work of art: how to choose for someone else
A work of art is the gift people keep longest, and the one that scares givers most: how to choose for someone else, how it arrives, and how the certificate changes hands.