Thinking and buying big: demand for large-scale paintings, photographs and sculpture is on the rise

Art Business News, Sept, 2004 by Keith Pandolfi

Sara Orton bought her first home, a small Creole cottage just outside of downtown New Orleans, in 2002. After painting a few rooms and tracking down the right furniture for its atypical floor plan, Orton was ready to add the finishing touches--new artwork.

She decided to start with the backyard, a lengthy 30- x 120 square-foot space flanked by high fences and leafy banana trees. Orton wanted a metal sculpture wide enough--or at least "fat enough"--to contrast with the yard's length. And she desired height--more than five-feet tall.

All things considered a tall order (pun intended).

Like Goldilocks searching for the perfect pot of porridge, Orton encountered a world of difficulties in her efforts to find an ideal piece of outdoor sculpture for her yard. Most of the pieces she looked at were too small, too expensive or too ugly. But, after a two-year search, she finally found something just right, a massive sculpture by a San Antonio, Texas-based student artist that she bought for $650 on eBay. "It's 28 inches across on the bottom and seven feet tall, with curly pieces of metal and no straight lines," Orton says. "I like it."

"There is a great call for outdoor sculpture right now," says Susan Riley, manager of the Rutledge Gallery in Dayton, Ohio, which carries the work of sculptor and gallery owner left Rutledge. "All of these gardening magazines and gardening (TV) shows are making people more aware of it."

But it's not just sculpture that's selling. Large-scale paintings and photographs are also in increasing demand, especially from homeowners, whose suburban-style McMansions are so well endowed with wall space that their owners don't know where to begin when it comes to decorating them. Then there are corporate art consultants, who are constantly searching for the right artwork for their clients' lobbies, conference rooms and corner offices.

Big 'n' Tail

Two years ago, Donna Quinn, an interior designer who worked primarily with new homeowners, started noticing that the houses she was decorating were getting too big for average-scale artwork.

The homes being built in and around her town of Yardley, Pa., were rife with cathedral ceilings and blindingly white walls. "Family rooms and foyers are now two-story rooms," she says. "Across the board (real-estate developers) were building according to a 10-foot standard. A lot of my clients were asking me, 'What am I going to do with these wails?'"

Quinn answered that question by opening Tall Walls Inc., an innovative gallery that offers large-scale--or what Quinn refers to as "scale-appropriate"--artwork for Americans' growing spatial demands. Tall Walls offers posters, prints and originals ranging in price from $15 to $15,000-plus. Along with paintings, Quinn also sells murals, mirrors, tall plants, lighting, tapestries, sculptures and floral arrangements.

Though housing construction is down in the United States, Quinn says business is better than ever. "This week alone has been unbelievable," she says. That's because those who took advantage of record-low interest rates a few years ago are just now getting around to purchasing artwork. "During the housing boom, people spent all their money on new houses," Quinn says. But now that they've purchased the right carpets and furniture, they're ready to start adding the finishing touches--namely artwork.

Big Inc.

Along with homeowners, corporate art consultants and interior designers are always in the market for large-scale artwork. While the nation's economy is still fragile, art consultants Kristen Rolando and Kimberly Campbell say they are noticing a slight increase in corporate expenditures for artwork. Their Atlanta-based consulting firm, Art Initiative Inc., works with clients such as G.E. Power Systems, Georgia Power and Miller & Martin, as well as the Sheraton, Westin and Marriott hotel chains. Finding artwork for their clients isn't usually a problem, they say, since galleries and artists are tuned in to the growing market for large-scale works. "We are seeing a lot of it," Rolando says. "It's not really a challenge. Actually, we have a good stable of artists and galleries here in Atlanta."

One company that is always on the bunt for quality large-scale artwork is Mayfield Village, Ohio-based auto insurance provider Progressive Corp. The company's Progressive Art Collection is comprised of more than 6,000 works of art by both established and up-and-coming artists from around the world. Much of the work is commissioned to artists for site-specific installations, says Ellen Rudolph, art education and communications manager for the collection. She says working on large-scale pieces gives artists a chance to see the creative process in a whole new light.

"We often work with artists who aren't used to doing large-scale art," Rudolph says. "Most of them are very anxious to create an installation that is site-specific and permanent. They are being paid to come up with it, and the room for creativity with a large piece is great."

Still, some artists are leery about creating large-scale artwork. While Quinn has commissioned several large pieces for her Tall Walls clients, she says financial concerns, and the lack of gallery space capable of accommodating larger artwork, sometimes deter artists from creating it. "There's a lot of apprehension," she says. "My artists love to paint large, but they are often hesitant to spend the time and resources, since galleries are apprehensive about carrying larger works because of the cost of retail space."