The frame-up

David Fahey’s 1928 Tudor-style home in the San Gabriel Valley sports walls blanketed with his eclectic collection of 20th century black-and-white photographs. Co-owner of Fahey/Klein photography gallery in Los Angeles, he likes the English drawing room salon style of hanging clusters of varying sizes of photographs in custom frames. “It’s a relaxed way of looking at art and allows you to see many pieces at the same time.”

At home in his den, Fahey measured the wall space above the sofa where the photographs would go, then taped off a similar size area on the bare floor and used it to lay out the photographs before hanging them. Following the line of the sofa as he began hanging, he started from the bottom center, then moved out from the right and left, keeping a consistent two-inch space between each piece to give a cohesive look. “Hanging from the center allows any irregular edges to be at the ends,” he says. “There are times when you can’t maintain the consistency, so it’s OK to cheat a little when you change a piece and reinsert a slightly different size frame, for instance. Being a little off is all right. With aesthetic judgments there are no rigid rules.”

*

Resource Guide

Custom oak frames available at Cosmos Editions, Portland, Ore., (503) 244-3941.