Why you shouldn't be scared to hang art in your home

“The only way I could carry it was to put it on my back. I walked out of the shop to get the bus and bumped into a group of Australian tourists. I had to pose for about 15 photographs,” he says.

In his line of work, the Old Etonian handles some of the world’s most valuable pieces, but believes great art work should be accessible to everyone.

“One always reads about things that make a fortune at auction, but 80 per cent of the things that we sell are affordable. An 18th-century chair can cost the same as a modern chair,” he says. Rock discovered this early on, traipsing around after his father who was a compulsive collector. “Most of my childhood was spent running around auction houses and dealers, because my dad would be buying yet another thing that was going to be smuggled home.”

Growing up, Rock’s ambition was to work at Christie’s, he tells the Telegraph in his first interview as UK chairman, a mantle he took on last October. Since joining in 1990, he has worked in the English picture department, valuations, furniture, country house sales, with a brief stint in New York, before setting up the house sales and collection teams in London.

All this has taught him the most important lesson when it comes to art – it’s not about expense or extravagance but simply how to display it albeit in a home or gallery.

“You shouldn’t have to be an expert to enjoy, appreciate and own original contemporary art,” says Will Ramsay, founder of the Affordable Art Fair. “The biggest myth is that being an art collector is reserved for the super-wealthy.”

Rock agrees: “I think people are scared of art. They shouldn’t be.”

The Affordable Art Fair returns to London on March 10 and will be held in Battersea Park, selling art valued from £100 to £5,000.

It’s not just the buying – which should be done for love, not money, says Rock – but the hanging that perplexes people. “Whatever you have on the walls, you should experiment. Live with it, love it, move it around to different rooms in the house.”

And Rock has 35 to choose from. He lives with his wife and four children in Burghley House, an Elizabethan stately home. His wife Miranda runs the estate which is home to the much-loved Burghley Horse Trials.

It is studded with artworks, each room more spectacularly decorated than the last. The family even identify the different rooms by artistic era – “Which drawing room? The blue one, with the European portraits in, or the red one with the Italian religious art?”

Tourists arrive to see the collection, which Rock describes as “priceless” and contains gems such as the second-largest silver wine cooler in the world made by Philip Rollos in 1710.

Hanging art in a stately home-cum-gallery has its own challenges. Rock wanted to return some of the art to its original position in the house but was stymied when he realised that doing so would block some of the doors that weren’t in the original layout but were introduced later.

Updating Burghley meant a complete rehanging of the 18 state rooms: “Once you’ve moved one picture, you have to move the rest.”

These are unusual problems for a privileged few. Those who are new to buying art should start by doing a bit of due diligence, he says. “Look at it from a condition point of view because it’s often expensive to restore things – that’s the hidden cost.”

As far as hanging goes, and for those without 40 foot high ceilings, positioning is a matter of personal taste. But whatever you’re hanging, do plan, Rock says. He advises drawing out the shape and size of your frames on paper on the floor. “Then you start to see them there as you have in your mind.”

Look at where the light in your chosen room is coming from and what it is that you are trying to hang. “If you have works of art that cannot be exposed to too much light, that can dictate your hang.” These include watercolours, which can be protected with sunlight retardant glass.

The period of your house is also important. Historical interiors featured mirrors within windows to try to maximise the amount of light that comes in at all times, while old houses are liable to have “wonky” walls, Rock says. “There might be a huge slope on the skirting board that you can really see with a picture hang because it is exacerbated.”

Harry Dalmeny, heir to the Earl of Rosebery and deputy chairman of Rock’s rival fine art auction house, Sotheby’s, has similar advice.

“If you’re hanging a group of pictures, it’s important to treat them like one picture,” he says. Where older paintings are concerned, with delicate frames, you may need to replace the hook and wires.

“You can double hook – put a hook on each side rather than just a piece of wire across the middle. While wire allows you to adjust picture, it also means that you can’t get them in the right place first time off,” Dalmeny says.

Lighting is trickier. “Picture lights are out of fashion,” he says, but he agrees that in some cases, especially in rooms with a “difficult synthesis of daylight”, it is possible to have picture lights under the picture throwing light up. “What you don’t want is the glare coming down off the canvas and throwing back at you. Spotlights can get a bit museum-like if you have recessed spotlights in the roof picking up pictures,” he says.

Rock believes that the younger generation will come around to art. “They have a passion for recycling and sharing. We see that with more people using Airbnb and buying vintage clothing. We’re searching for real value, and this mantra can be applied to art and antiques,” he says.

Reference: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/luxury/dont-be-scared-to-hang-art-in-your-home-christies-boss-says/