How to Hang Art: A Nashville Abstract Painter Reveals How the Masters Want You to Do It

I’ve spent sixteen years as a contemporary painter creating color theory based abstracts in Nashville, and I can tell you this with absolute certainty: the moment a painting leaves my studio, I still care deeply about how it’s hung. Height, light, breathing room, everything. The masters felt exactly the same way.

Here are the modern masters in their own words (or documented anecdotes) telling us how they want their work treated on a wall space:

1. **Pablo Picasso**  
   “Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not…”  
   (Picasso was famously obsessive about level hanging; he once made a collector re-hang a painting three times in one evening until it was perfectly straight.)

2. **Henri Matisse**  
   “What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity… A painting on a wall should be like a bouquet of flowers in an interior.”  
   — Henri Matisse, 1949  
   (He designed entire rooms around his cut-outs so they would “bloom” correctly.)

3. **Georgia O’Keeffe**  
   “I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty…”  
   — Georgia O’Keeffe  
   (She insisted her giant flowers be hung low enough for viewers to “step inside” them.)

4. **Mark Rothko**  
   “I’m not interested in color relationships in the abstract. I’m interested in expressing emotions… The painting must be seen in a dim light and at a certain distance — 18 inches from the canvas is too far.”  
   — Mark Rothko to the curators of the Tate Modern  
   (Rothko specified exact lighting levels (8–10 foot-candles) and viewing distance for his Seagram murals and even turned down sales when buyers refused his hanging conditions.)

5. **Jackson Pollock**  
   “On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting…”  
   — Jackson Pollock, 1950  
   (He hated heavy ornate frames and preferred his drips to “float” with minimal edge interference.)

6. **Vincent van Gogh**  
   “I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process…”  
   (Van Gogh often wrote about the emotional intensity of his paintings and how natural light revealed their true vibrancy, as seen in his letters to Theo.)

7. **Claude Monet**  
   “Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment…”  
   — Claude Monet  
   (Monet painted series under varying lights and insisted his works be hung to mimic outdoor conditions, capturing fleeting effects.)

8. **Frida Kahlo**  
   “I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration…”  
   (Kahlo's self-portraits were intensely personal; she curated displays to immerse viewers in her lived truth, often insisting on intimate, eye-level placements.)

9. **Yayoi Kusama**  
   “My art originates from hallucinations only I can see. I translate the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings…”  
   (Kusama's immersive installations require specific hanging and lighting to create her signature infinite repetitions, turning passive viewing into active participation.)

10. **Lee Krasner**  
   “I like a canvas to breathe and be alive. Be alive.”  
   (Krasner emphasized the vitality of her canvases, insisting they be hung with ample space around them to allow the work's energy to expand freely into the room, as noted in her discussions about her abstract expressionist pieces.)

11. **Helen Frankenthaler**  
   “There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.”  
   (Frankenthaler advocated for her soak-stain paintings to be displayed in ways that defied conventional framing, often preferring unframed edges to let colors bleed naturally into the viewer's space, reflecting her innovative spirit.)

12. **Joan Mitchell**  
   “Painting is not separate from life. It is one.”  
   (Mitchell viewed her lyrical abstractions as extensions of lived experience, demanding they be hung at eye level in well-lit environments to foster an intimate, emotional dialogue with the viewer, as she expressed in interviews about her process.)

These twelve artists every single one was fanatical about presentation so when someone tells you to hang your new abstract at exactly 58" to center, 7" above the sofa, with warm picture lights and no direct sunlight they may just be a purist. 

Shop my collections and send me a photo of your wall -- I’ll tell you what I think.  
https://angelasimeone.com/collections/new-paintings-and-wallpaper-by-angela-simeone

think big,  
Angela Simeone  
Nashville, November 2025