Large Art: How Interior Designers Find It When Money Is Tight

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.

Monthly electric vehicle deliveries at NIO , XPeng , and Li Auto set a record in November. Things are looking even better for December.

EV demand isn’t an issue in China. Pricing, however, continues to be a struggle.

Sunday, NIO reported 20,575 deliveries for November, up about 29% from a year ago. Based on recent guidance, given with third-quarter earnings , NIO expects to deliver about 32,000 cars in December, a record, and up about 77% from a year ago.

Li reported 48,740 deliveries for November, up about 19% from a year ago. Based on recent guidance from Li’s third-quarter earnings , the company should deliver about 65,000 cars in December, up 29% from a year ago.

XPeng delivered 30,895 vehicles in November, up about 54% from a year ago. The midpoint of its fourth-quarter guidance, given on its third-quarter earnings report, was 89,000 cars, implying December deliveries of about 34,000 units.

December’s implied numbers would be a record for all three auto makers. EV demand in China is still solid. The bigger problem is competition. Citi analyst Jeff Chung recently wrote that the Chinese car market is still concerned about a “potential price war in 2025.”

He projects 2024 all-electric vehicle sales of 7.8 million units, up about 28% from 2023. Sales in 2025 should be up another 17% to 9.1 million cars. The problem: The industry has the capacity to make 28 million all-electric cars annually, according to Chung’s calculations. Capacity utilization that low typically isn’t great for profit margins.

At least there is demand. Combined, the three Chinese EV makers sold 100,210 vehicles in November. That’s a monthly record. December guidance implies about 131,000 cars sold, another record.

Coming into Monday trading, NIO stock was down about 51% this year while the S&P 500 was up about 26%. XPeng and Li shares were down 17% and 37%, respectively.

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.

Wrap the Room

Dig a Digital Tapestry

Stay Local

Look to the Old World