Large Art: How Interior Designers Find It When Money Is Tight
Here’s where design pros source large-scale decorations that don’t cost tens of thousands of dollars.
4 min
LAUREN MCGRATH has spent the last decade fine-tuning her hunt for statement-making art that won’t break the bank. “Beautiful rugs and sofas are great, but if you don’t have anything on the walls, it doesn’t look complete,” said the Greenwich, Conn., interior designer. Many clients don’t think about art until the budget is tapped out.
Finding reasonably priced large-scale artwork to fill those gaping voids over beds and sofas is particularly tough. But if blue-chip paintings are beyond your reach, you aren’t doomed to hanging museum posters. Here, the newest ways design pros are filling big blank walls when cash is tight.
Wrap the Room
While it’s nice to dream of a virtuosic muralist gracing your room’s four walls with luscious landscapes or abstract panoramas, wallpapers can do that now much more affordably. Exhibit A: the Yunnan mural from French furnishings company Pierre Frey shown above. The misty mountains that envelop the Bethesda, Md., dining room by designer Erica Burns require no more adornment than a simple mirror over the mantel. Murals range from $8.16 a square foot, from online wallpaper purveyor Rebel Walls, to $488 for 24 square feet from West Elm. A 4-metre wide Hudson River landscape based on an antique etching runs approx. $829 on furnishings site One Kings Lane.
Ms. Burns has one warning for mural hangers: Avoid a single statement wall. Envelop the entire room for a modern, finished feel.
Dig a Digital Tapestry
Zardi & Zardi, founded by PJ Keeling, started digitally printing tapestries on linen in the early 2000s, at first just as placeholders for historic originals that were being restored. Soon, however, he was taking commissions from interior designers. Now the Gloucestershire, England, company sells its re-creations of European masterpieces online. A popular pastoral style about 7 feet wide, lined and weighted, costs approximately $1,900. “You get a million-dollar look that feels totally original,” said interior designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard, who has hung these tapestries in a 12th-century castle in Italy and a home in Connecticut.
Greg Penn, a home restorer in Devon, England, hung a Zardi & Zardi tapestry in the cavernous bedroom of his 19th-century Georgian home. (The studio, which has sponsored posts on Mr. Penn’s @manwithahammer Instagram account, sent him the tapestry gratis.) The classic bucolic hanging warms the vast space and “helps with the acoustics,” he said.
Stay Local
Small art shops are not only less intimidating than big-name, big-city galleries, they represent lesser-known artists who don’t yet command top dollar. “Starting at a more local level, when it comes to galleries, is the way you’re going to find big pieces that fill a space at an affordable price,” said Ms. McGrath, who nabbed the large-scale, signed photograph (shown above) for $1630 unframed. Her source: Lumas, a website and global network of small galleries whose aim is “the liberation of art” via reasonable prices.
When shopping the local market, room-size paintings—which fewer buyers can accommodate—can be a better deal than modestly scaled art, said Patrick Bradbury, owner of Tuxedo Park Junk Shop in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. He recently scored an 2.2-metres square acrylic work on canvas by American contemporary artist Allan Hacklin for approx. $300 at auction. He advises seeking out vintage shops that have a lot of space to fill. Given his own gallery’s expansive walls, he’s more likely to stock big art than boutique galleries with a small retail footprint. Another plus: Regional operations might let you take the art home so you can see it in situ.
Look to the Old World
A vintage classroom map of Europe takes up most of the wall behind Caley Weyman’s living room sofa. “It’s always the life of the party,” said the Toronto collectibles dealer. “It doesn’t have a date, so people are always looking for clues as to when it’s from.” She sells vintage wares through her Instagram shop @shipyardvintage and says maps sell immediately. She favours rolling classroom maps over flat maps for their durable vinyl finish, weighted wood dowels and built-in hardware. “They have longevity and hang nicely.” She sources hers at salvage and thrift shops and wouldn’t pay more than $400 for one. Schoolroom maps, which typically span 5 feet, not only bring a bigger statement into your home than a dinky print but convey an equally expansive sense of nostalgia and adventure.
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This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
3 min
There are Corvette fans for whom the base US$68,300 car is plenty powerful enough. After all, it produces 495 horsepower and can reach 60 miles per hour in 2.9 seconds. But hold on, there’s also the approximately US$115,000 Z06—with 670 horsepower and able to reach 60 in 2.6 seconds. These split seconds are important for busy people—and for marketing claims. And if that’s not enough go power, there’s the even more formidable 900-horsepower ZR1 version of the Corvette, starting around US$150,000. The hybrid E-Ray, at US$104,900, is pretty potent, too.
But if they’re still too slow, fans of American-engineered muscle can consider the exclusive Texas-built Hennessey Venom F5, a limited-edition carbon-fibre hypercar. Ten years ago, the Hennessey became the world’s fastest production car, defeating the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, with a top speed of 270.49 miles per hour.
That world title is much sought after, and is currently held by the Sweden-built 1,600-horsepower Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut, with a two-way average top speed of 277.8 mph. But Hennessey is still very much a contender. The company is hoping the 1,817-horsepower F5 (with 1,192 pound-feet of torque) can exceed 300 mph on the track this year.
Hennessey photo
Hennessey’s previous Venom GT model (introduced in 2010) was based on the Lotus Exige, with a GM LS-based engine, and was built by partner Delta Motorsport. Spokesman Jon Visscher tells Penta , “The new Venom F5, revealed in 2020, is a 100%bespoke creation—unique to Hennessey and featuring a Hennessey-designed 6.6-litre twin-turbo V8 engine boasting 1,817 horsepower, making it the world’s most powerful combustion-engine production car.” Leaps in performance like this tend to be pricey.
This is a very exclusive automobile, priced around US$2.5 million for the coupe, and US$3 million for the F5 Roadster announced in 2023. Only 30 Roadsters will be built, with a removable carbon-fiber roof. The 24 F5 coupes were spoken for in 2021, but if you really want one you could find a used example—or go topless. In a statement to Penta , company founder and CEO John Hennessey said that while the coupe “is now sold out, a handful of build slots remain for our Roadster and [track-focused] Revolution models.”
Only 24 Revolutions will be built in coupe form, priced at US$2.7 million. There’s also a rarefied roadster version of the Revolution, with just 12 to be built.
Hennessey photo
The Venom F5 coupe weighs only 3,000 pounds, and it’s not surprising that insane speeds are possible when combined with a hand-built motor (nicknamed “Fury”) created with power uppermost. The V8 in the F5, installed in a rear mid-engine configuration, has a custom engine block and lightweight forged aluminium pistons, billet-steel crankshaft, and forged-steel connecting rods. Twin turbochargers are featured. The F5 can reach 62 mph in less than three seconds, but top speed seems to be its claim to fame.
The driver shifts the rear-wheel-drive car via a seven-speed, single-clutch transmission with paddle shifters. The interior is not as spartan or as tight as in many other supercars, and is able to handle very tall people. The butterfly doors lift up for access.
“With 22 customer Venom F5 hypercars already delivered to customers around the world, and a newly expanded engineering team, we’re focusing the Venom F5 on delivering on its potential,” Hennessey says. “Breaking 300 mph in two directions is the goal we aim to achieve toward the end of this year to claim the ‘world’s fastest production car’ title.”
Hennessey says the car and team are ready. “Now the search is on for a runway or public road with a sufficiently long straight to allow our 1,817-horsepower, twin-turbo V8 monster to accelerate beyond 300 mph and return to zero safely.” The very competitive Hennessey said the track-focused Revolution version of the F5 set a fastest production car lap around Texas’ 3.41-mile Circuit of the Americas track in March, going almost seven seconds faster than a McLaren P1.
The Revolution features a roof-mounted central air scoop (to deliver cool air to the engine bay), a full-width rear carbon wing, larger front splitter and rear diffuser, tweaked suspension, and engine cooling. It’s got the same powertrain as the standard cars, but is enhanced to stay planted at otherworldly speeds.
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
