Framing and mounting means preparing an artwork for display or hanging, in other words the whole assembly in the frame: glass or acrylic glazing, the work itself, the mount (a card window with a cut-out that separates the work from the glass), the backing and the fixing. It concerns mainly works on paper, such as drawings, prints, watercolours and photographs, which the surrounding environment could easily damage without protection. With paintings on canvas, people tend to speak simply of framing. A curious detail: in the Czech Republic contemporary canvases are often not framed at all, whereas in Australia, for example, framing them is common.
The foundation is a mount made of acid-free, ideally museum-grade board of cotton or pure cellulose. Ordinary board containing lignin releases acids over time, the paper of the work yellows, and a brown line may appear along the edges of the window. The second layer is the glazing. Ordinary glass blocks only part of UV radiation (roughly up to 45 per cent), while museum glass blocks 70 to 99 per cent depending on the type and hardly reflects at all. And the work should be fixed reversibly, so that it can be taken out at any time without damage. Does that sound like a detail? It is exactly these details that decide how the work will look in twenty years.
With old paintings, the original frame is often part of the work and of its value. It carries the patina of history and belongs to the painting’s provenance (its documented history of ownership). Reframing is worthwhile only when the work has been insensitively altered and sits in an unsuitable frame; then the ideal is to find an old frame from the same period and region. In contemporary art, the mounting can even be part of the concept. Félix González-Torres gave collectors of his photographic jigsaw puzzles precise instructions on how to hang and frame them.
Entrust the work to an experienced framer and ask which materials will be used. An acid-free mount, UV-filtering glass and reversible fixing should be a matter of course for any more valuable work on paper. Do not trim the margins of prints and photographs, because that is often where the signature and edition number are. Do not hang a framed work in direct sunlight or above a radiator. And when you buy an older work, look under the mount too: yellowed edges reveal that it is time to replace the mounting.
— Anna Pulkertová, founder of Art Part Club
Listen in the lecture (in Czech): Art in Great Britain, France and the Benelux, at 1:32:20
Related terms: Works on paper · Provenance · Photography · Lithography · Editions and limitation
