At home with art

At Home with Art is about art lovers, their passion for art, and their seemingly unquenchable desire to bring home the works that have captured their hearts. Whether the artworks are Picassos or posters, these people want to acquire and live with the art they love. “I wake up in the morning and exercise where I can look at it,” says John Robson about one of the paintings in his San Francisco townhouse. How these art lovers integrate their finds
into their living spaces, juxtaposing their paintings and sculpture with the artifacts of everyday life — furniture, rugs, books, lamps, objets d’art — is vividly illustrated here in more than fifty homes inhabited by people for whom living with art is as essential as breathing.

These homes are not mini-museums with art to be admired from a respectful distance. Nor have they been designed by interior decorators whose goal is to harmonize the upholstery with the pictures. Each home has been chosen for its very personal and inspired expression of art and decor, revealing a deep, even spiritual, relationship between the pictures on the walls and the people who place them there. From airy lofts and old farmhouses to sleek city apartments and cozy traditional houses, all are made special by the paintings and sculptures within.

A wide variety of people appear in these pages, from the president of MoMA to a young man in love with poster art, to the writer who has artist friends, to the young woman who inherited pieces from her mother, to the actress whose art travels with her wherever she goes. The kinds of art that speak to them and that they are impelled to acquire range from old masters to outsider art, from folk art to contemporary art, to prints, drawings, photographs, and sculpture. We learn about what sparked their interest in a particular genre, how they make their selections, how they meld them into their homes, and what living with their art means to them.

Though looking at these interiors proves there are no fixed rules about displaying a work of art, special sections on framing, hanging, lighting, and caring for art, from oil paintings to delicate works on paper, provide technical assistance. A directory includes framers, dealers, auction houses, and restorers in major American cities and in London.

Above all, At Home with Art shows that there are all kinds of art to be loved and cherished, however grand or simple, and that living surrounded by art’s beauty can bring boundless personal satisfaction.