Five Painters Whose Work Makes for Beautiful Posters
Nothing ties a room together or completes a design aesthetic faster than the right piece of art on the wall. Fine art can define a space by adding color and interest to what may be an otherwise bland room. Art is often a conversation starter and makes a great statement about your personality and the personality of your space.
For those of us whose budget doesn’t include a trip to Christie’s or Sotheby’s auction houses, custom posters provide excellent opportunities to bring fine art into any space on a budget.
If you’re looking for the perfect, beautiful art poster to hang on your wall, here are some painters whose work is striking and translates well from canvas to poster:
Claude Monet, Master Impressionist
Monet was the king of the 19th-century Impressionist painters . He is most famous for his paintings of flowers, gardens, and waterlilies, which exhibit a serene, relaxing color palette and quick, visible brushstrokes.
Monet posters are perfect for offices, waiting rooms, or other relaxing, quiet spaces. If you’re looking to fill a room with a series of similarly themed posters, Monet is the ideal artist, as he repeated subjects and scenes throughout his career.
Utagawa Hiroshige, the Painter of Peaceful Landscapes
The painter and printmaker Utagawa Hiroshige captured the look and spirit of Japan in his One Hundred Famous Views of Edo series, all of which are oriented portrait style, making them natural poster material.
Hiroshige’s prints explode with color and personality, using a variety of greens, pinks, blues, and reds to portray both landscapes and vignettes of traditional Japanese life. Hiroshige posters are perfect for your home office, crafting room, or any other space you want to give a vibrant Japanese feel.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Eternal Bohemian
If you’re looking for a poster that gives a room that Parisian, bohemian vibe, look no further than Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec’s iconic paintings and advertising posters portray the City of Lights as an intimate world, bursting with fun and filled with dark corners where adventure or intellectual conversation might take place.
Throughout his career, Toulouse-Lautrec used a variety of color palettes and compositions, from the bright and airy to the dark and close-quartered, meaning his catalog contains a great conversation piece poster for nearly any room or design aesthetic.
Joan Mitchell, the Queen of the Abstract
American artist Joan Mitchell painted bold, provocative work that fits perfectly into any room or space with a modern design sensibility. Unlike the other painters on this list, Mitchell’s work is nonrepresentational and forces viewers to grapple with what she’s trying to accomplish.
Joan Mitchell posters make for fantastic statement pieces in rooms with an open-concept or minimalistic design aesthetic because they are eye-catching and command attention without being distracting or cutesy.
Kehinde Wiley, Pop Culture Portraitist
Portrait artist Kehinde Wiley rose to national prominence with his presidential portrait of Barack Obama, depicting the commander-in-chief emerging from a background of leaves.
Although he’s best known for his celebrity portraits, Wiley also creates stunning paintings of everyday people in his signature style, set against patterned backdrops that don’t seem to play by the usual rules of perspective. If you’re trying to create a space that looks hip, modern, and (dare we say) cool, consider adding a Kehinde Wiley piece to your room.
Regardless of which art poster you select, we’d love to help you make that print a cohesive, attention-grabbing design element with a custom frame. Frames help our posters pop visually and make them look like museum ready art. To learn more, click here!
If you’re looking for more tips on how to display your new poster, check out our "How to Hang a Custom Poster" blog!