The Long Gallery at Hever Castle
A bespoke lighting design for a unique collection of portraits of the Tudors at Hever Castle featuring the ArtView and its smaller brother the ArtSpot.
The ArtView picture light for fine art and large canvases
The ArtView picture light was created to light large canvases beautifully
The ArtView picture light addresses the issues associated with traditional picture lights – uneven light coverage, poor quality light, high energy consumption and harmful UV emissions – whilst looking perfectly in keeping with both traditional and modern interiors. It also adds the potential for a remarkable degree of control for each individual picture.
After being approached by one of our clients to light their significant collection of portraits (many 2-3m tall) we developed the ArtView picture light in association with one of our specialist LED suppliers. Since launching it in 2014 we have lit some wonderful art collections, and have developed different versions to suit both larger and smaller canvases. If you’re interested in the best possible treatment for your paintings you should talk to us about what the ArtView can do for your artwork.
Rupert Alexander – Artist
“Unlike any other picture light I have used the ArtView light provides an almost perfectly even distribution of light across a canvas of any size, so the bottom of a painting is no longer lost in darkness. What’s more, the colour rendering is excellent: the entire range of the colour spectrum is revealed, so no more lost reds or greens.”
What makes the ArtView picture light so different?
- The ArtView looks like a traditional light fitting, with a discrete brass housing in a variety of finishes and made to a custom length to suit each picture. What makes it so different is what the traditional form factor conceals.
- The ArtView delivers a fabulous quality of light. It uses very high quality LEDs together with filters to fine tune the colour temperature to the painting type. For example 2750k (a very warm white) may suit 17th and 18th century oils but a very modern canvas with lots of blues and white may look best when lit with a warm rather than very warm light.
- The ArtView lights the whole picture. Historically traditional picture lights use a non-directional light source which just gives a ‘hot spot’ at the top of the picture. By using LEDs with appropriate optics the Artview can throw light across the whole canvas. On ‘smaller’ paintings (up to c.1.3m canvas height) it uses a single optic type, and on larger paintings (c.3m high) it uses an innovative mixture of optics to distribute light across the distance. Our clients have been amazed at details revealed in works that they have known for years.
- The ArtView can have its light output fine tuned to suit the particular painting. This is useful when you have a variety of picture sizes and subjects hanging next to each other but you would like them to look visually balanced. Using a Lutron DALI control system we can, for example, increase the output of a picture light on a very dark canvas and reduce it for an adjoining very light canvas. The DALI system reduces wiring complexity (although a particular wiring architecture is required) and is completely flexible over time if canvases move around.
- The ArtView emits no harmful UV light and minimal heat. LEDs as a source emit virtually no UV; our ArtView LED picture light incorporates a UV filter as well to ensure that there is protection against any UV being emitted from the light source.
- It is completely customisable to each painting. We specify the length of the bar, the type of optics, the length, shape and spacing of the arms, the colour of the light, how much light is emitted etc.
- Finishes can be customised. For example in a contemporary townhouse we matched the finish to the wallpaper – a wonderful silky silvery blue.
ArtView is a bespoke picture light
The largest ArtView picture lights we’ve commissioned to date are c.2.2m long (going longer than this can cause issues with delivery), and where the objects being lit are larger (e.g. we’ve lit a 5.5m wide tapestry) we can use multiple fittings designed so that the light is continuous across them.
As a highly customised fitting prices vary, but indicatively a c.1m ArtView picture light is c.£800-850, a 1.5m one is c.£1100, both ex delivery and VAT. If a site visit is required – advisable if the artwork is complex, if there is a lot of it, or if we need to discuss how the picture lights are cabled and dimmed – then this is charged at our normal hourly rates.
Case Studies featuring the ArtView picture light
Artwork clients
Much of our work lighting art collections is for private clients and usually that work has to remain private. However we’re also delighted to have the following as clients
