Letting it all hang out

Famously found at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition and in great houses such as Goodwood, the “salon hang” – the artful arrangement of multiple pictures in a room – is also a feature of the most fashionable contemporary interiors

Words by Emma Crichton-Miller

Lorem poter ciissunde non et quo blanis arum ratis que porat darqui ilisin consetarem, 0000 Below: the 2018 Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. Right: a watercolour of the ballroom at Goodwood by designer Alec Cobbe

GETTY IMAGES In 1982 the American artist Allan McCollum produced a work entitled Collection of 40 Plaster Surrogates – 40 objects that looked like framed paintings, in a range of sizes, with a black rectangle where the image should be. Hung on the wall in close proximity to each other, the “paintings” were made from enamelled terracotta. The idea was to draw attention to the hang, the way paintings are arranged on a wall. The pattern is rhythmic and alluring; individual paintings become part of a sculptural installation. Today this practice is commonplace for designers, but at a time when fashionable interiors were all white walls and blank space, it was radical.

As the Royal Academician in charge of displaying the entries for this year’s Summer Exhibition at the RA, where the “salon hang” is a proud tradition, sculptor Alison Wilding wryly comments: “I have just googled ‘salon hang’, and to my surprise it is not just a curiosity of the RA Summer Exhibition, but an acceptable way in the world of interior design to create a wall of paintings or framed works.” In the context of the exhibition, however, cramming the walls is a necessity. “We have looked at over 15,000 images and about 1,200 will be hung or installed.”

The salon hang was born in 1667, when Louis XIV sponsored an exhibition of works by members of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. From 1725 this became an annual event, held in the Salon Carré at the Louvre. So vital was recognition by the Salon for any artist’s career that pictures were mounted high to the ceiling. The RA adopted the style for its Summer Exhibition, held every year since 1769. We can see from prints and paintings of the time how audiences had to crane their necks to do full justice to the stacked displays.

By the mid-Victorian period, more than 2,500 works would be competing for attention. Artists began to commission huge architectural frames as a way to control the space around their images. Then, in 1877, Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife, Blanche, founded the Grosvenor Gallery. Enthusiastic supporters of the pre-Raphaelites, they allowed each painting its space on a white wall. Although the gallery closed in 1890, the grip of the salon hang had loosened.

The style’s contemporary revival is striking, as anyone who has visited a branch of Soho House will have noticed. Kate Bryan, head of collections, has made a fine art of artfully displaying the 5,000 works in the private members’ club’s collection. She reports: “The members often ask us, ‘How can I build a good-looking art wall like that?’” With a good eye and careful planning, anyone can create a hang that is more than the sum of its parts.

In many great houses, the salon hang never went away. The Irish artist, designer and decorator Alec Cobbe is responsible for the interior decoration and rehanging of painting collections at several historic houses, including Goodwood. He has spoken about the dynamic interaction of architecture and paintings, telling Architectural Digest: “In a room of architectural merit, you can’t ignore the volume, the dimensions. Rehanging pictures can change your entire perception of a space... The 20th-century reaction to Victorian clutter has encouraged us to hang pictures in isolation. They may gain clarity and be seen in better light that way, but they do lose their original architectural role.”

Yet however impressive the soaring walls of works at the Summer Exhibition may be, artists are not always thrilled to be exhibited salon-style. As Wilding puts it: “Some artists inevitably draw the short straw and find their painting nearer the ceiling than the floor.” Craned necks are here to stay.