There's plenty of great vintage art to be found at fairs and stores, so why stop at just one painting? As these rooms show, collecting a few vintage art pieces to make a unique, relatively inexpensive gallery wall can make a great impression.
Depending on your taste in artwork, you can search out quirky paint-by-numbers or more traditional landscapes. Or you can mix it up and create something completely unique. It's a fun, personal way to decorate anywhere from the smallest entryway to a large living room wall.
• Kirsten Grove's large, diverse collection features everything from portraits to still lifes. Via Simply Grove.
• Longtime followers of SfGirlByBay have followed Rico Suave, Victoria's vintage painting of a man in a suit, to various spots around her home. Here, he's part of a well-balanced gallery wall. Via Decor8.
• Decorator Kevin Corn mimics the clean lines of his entry table with a series of vintage photos. Via Design*Sponge.
• Rodellee's Tiny Vintage Studio shows that vintage artwork can balance well with modern, graphic textiles.
• Kelly and Matt's vintage Witco piece looks chic hanging beside their liquor cabinet in their Modern Take on Tiki House Tour.
• Tiffany and Jaan's vintage museum exhibit posters look elegant and simple in their Scandinavian Inspired Flat.
• Vintage artwork cleverly decorates what could have been an awkward corner in Danny and Jeff's Vintage Collection House Tour.
• The home of Wary Meyers founders Lisa and John Meyers features two vintage pieces paired with a colorful collection of pillows.
• A pretty, mellow collection of paintings looks sweet with a hat rack and Dwell bedding in Jordan Ferney's San Francisco bedroom.
• Three large pieces over a series of smaller ones creates a unique gallery wall in Laura & Anna's Small Cool 2010 entry.
Image: 1. Kirsten Grove for Simply Grove 2. Victoria Smith for Decor8 3. Jim McHugh for Design*Sponge 4. Bethany Nauert 5. Beth Bates 6. Laure Joliet 7. Jason Loper 8. Wary Meyers 9. Aubrey Trinnaman for Oh Happy Day! 10. Apartment Therapy
Dirty Little Secrets of Tidy Families
Emi & Nathan's Natural History
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Sprout Side Table
5 Things Paris Taught Me About Travel
Recipe: Ham, Cheddar & Chive Egg Bakes
Forget the collection, I want that coffee table in the first picture! ;)
#3 & #10 are my favorites out of the bunch.
I think crooked wall hangings look sloppy, but I can understand not everyone is as OCD as I am about neatness.
what do straight pictures have to do with neatness? Also OCD is not a radio that turns on and off. It's a compulsion not a design aesthetic.
Well said, Girl & Lamp. One of my peeves as well.
Modish etcetera, those were my favorites too!
A gallery would never, ever hang art it wanted people to look at like this. Never.
@JefferyK, I know of at least one gallery that does hang things exactly like this. So you are wrong. It might not be the most NYC effective display, but it works for them.
I'm not a fan of a bunch of pictures with no unifying point.
I saw a set of variously sized frames on AT with a horizontal line across the middle, and a vertical line at the one third point on the left. The frames were arranged lined on the imaginary lines, and then expanded outward from there. It was outstanding. Maybe I am just into order a bit too much.
I love walls full of art, but sometimes Gallery arrangements can be small and perfect too.
Like this one by Emily Henderson:
http://ilikeanimalcrackers.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/picture-12.png
Or this one that I did:
http://www.insideways.com/2011/07/what-is-this-thing-called.html
Mini Galleries can have as much impact as the big ones :)