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| Feb 26, 2020 |
Exhibition designers from four art museums share their secrets for choosing paint colors to make artwork shine.
Approximately 300,000 people visit the Milwaukee Art Museum every year. Enough of them inquire about the paint colors used on the gallery walls that the museum sends them directly to the closest Sherwin-Williams store (at 807 E. Brady St.), which is ready to share the exact specifications for every space. 鈥淧eople really pay attention to those colors and say, 鈥業鈥檓 going to imitate that,鈥欌 says David Russick, the museum鈥檚 exhibition designer.
The interest is sincere, but is the approach that simple? STIR tapped Russick and exhibition designers from three other leading art museums 鈥 all Sherwin-Williams customers 鈥 for the inside scoop on their color and finish preferences, process and more.
Color and Saturation
The Milwaukee Art Museum鈥檚 Russick likens color to sound volume. 鈥淚t鈥檚 literally infinite,鈥 he says. 鈥淵ou can shout, you can whisper and you can do every decibel level in between.鈥 What he chooses, often asking a Sherwin-Williams store to tint a color slightly lighter or darker to become custom, reinforces what the art is attempting to share. 鈥淚f it鈥檚 done properly, I think color becomes a glue 鈥 a binding element 鈥 that brings the works together,鈥 he says. Lawrence Waung, the chief exhibition designer at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) in Raleigh, agrees and acknowledges the importance of paint color in creating a connection. 鈥淲e鈥檙e always trying to use color that will help define the special relationship we want the viewer to have with the artwork,鈥 he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 more psychological than physical.鈥For a Georgia O鈥橩eefe exhibition at the NCMA, that meant Vesper Violet SW 6542 (187-C3), Daydream 6541 (187-C2) and Superwhite SW 6995. (Note: Superwhite SW 6995 is a retired color that is still available via custom tinting.) 鈥淲e鈥檙e constantly looking for colors that recede from view so that they don鈥檛 get in front of our objects,鈥 Waung says.
Paler, quieter colors aren鈥檛 always the answer. In the past, popular belief might have placed 19th-century impressionist paintings, for example, against cotton candy, baby blue or light green walls, says John Jackson, an exhibition designer at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. 鈥淏ut the trend lately has been to go with darker, richer colors to make the paintings themselves have a whiter value so that they pop and come off the walls instead of blending in,鈥 he says.
For Jackson, the same approach applies to creating backdrops for decorative arts and sculptural objects. A special exhibition on view at the museum through May 2020, Teachers of Enlightenment: Traditions in Tibetan Buddhism, includes bronze sculptural pieces that resemble a navy color. They stand out beautifully against the reddish Tanager SW 6601 (107-C6) Jackson chose for the walls.
But exhibition designers walk a fine line between choosing resonant colors 鈥 and choosing colors that stand out too much. 鈥淲e have a fairly well-known collection of Dutch paintings that tend to be really dark with a lot of glazing, and when they鈥檙e up against a white wall, it takes a while for your eyes to adjust,鈥 Waung says. 鈥淪o, we鈥檙e mindful of doing something that鈥檚 easier on the eyes.鈥
That said, for more modern and contemporary art, exhibition designers often find white works best. For the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, it鈥檚 Pure White SW 7005 (255-C1); for the NCMA, it鈥檚 Superwhite SW 6995; for the Milwaukee Art Museum, it鈥檚 a custom white.
Finish
Exhibition designers recommend a non-reflective flat finish, which prevents glare from track and natural lighting. Jackson, however, sometimes prefers satin or eg-shel finishes, which are traditionally easier to keep clean. 鈥淚f we use flat, we can have scuffmarks and handprints on the wall within hours,鈥 he says. (Note: Both Sherwin-Williams Emerald庐 and Duration Home庐 paints now come in cleanable flat finishes.)An Iterative Process
Choosing the best paint color for a gallery wall tends to be an iterative process, the exhibition designers say.鈥淲e often start by taking a simple color wheel and looking at what鈥檚 on the opposite end,鈥 Jackson says. He then applies that principle to a fan deck of swatches, zeroes in on the top three or four paint colors, and has them painted on 2-by-4-foot foam core boards to hold up against the art.
Hans Schmitt-Matzen, the assistant director of internal affairs at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, does the same. 鈥淲e often go back and forth a couple of times to make sure it鈥檚 just right,鈥 he says. 鈥淲e never, ever pick a color without doing a color sample to make sure it鈥檚 right. I highly recommend investing in a quart of paint before making a commitment to paint the whole room or wall.鈥
@SWDesignPros #SWDesignPros #color
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