We've Been Framed

Stores Are Selling Us More 'Wall Decor' to Go With Our Couches

Patricia Gbet browses at Bassett Furniture Direct, which sells "wall decor." (Marie Poirier Marzi For The Washington Post)

On a recent afternoon, Dedra Dawson went to a Rockville furniture store to buy art.

For nearly an hour she traversed Bassett Furniture Direct, emerging with two large abstract prints -- gilt-framed and double-matted under glass -- for her Bethesda home. She was not the slightest bit sheepish about selecting artwork sold alongside sofas.

"I love art. My goal is to make my house look like a gallery. I prefer originals, but I will mix expensive with inexpensive art," said Dawson, who paid $209.95 each for Yesterday I and Yesterday II by artist James Campbell.

Dawson mirrors a growing trend of consumers who buy art -- known in the industry as "wall decor" -- that is made and marketed to coordinate with prevailing trends in home furnishings. Moody autumnal landscapes in shades of gold and crimson in the fall accessorize rust chenille couches. Sun-splashed beaches and quaint harbor prints pair with summery blue-and-white striped slipcovers. Florals, still lifes and portraits are all keyed to the fabrics of the moment.

Next week, buyers for thousands of national furniture chains, local stores, mail-order catalogues and Web sites will descend on the International Home Furnishings Market in High Point, N.C., to order furniture that will start appearing in stores next spring. As they make their rounds, they will also hit dozens of art showrooms to see the latest in paintings, posters, prints and photographs.

The framed images will be varied enough to complement any decor: early American, French country, pan-Asian, Afro-centric, high Victorian, art deco, country cottage, urban loft, the great Southwest, beach house casual, biker raunchy and McMansion enormous, all selected with an eye to decorating trends.

"People are absolutely buying more art. In the last two or three years, our art sales have doubled," said Becky Weber, Crate & Barrel's accessories buyer, who declined to give specific sales figures.

None of this is lost on artists -- whose royalties are tied to sales -- as they create images of quaint Parisian cafes, jammin' jazz combos, monochrome geometrics and ye olde hunting scenes.

"More than at any time in the field, [artists] have a really good sense of what's going on in the wider home furnishings market," said John F.D. Taff, associate publisher of Decor, an art and framing industry magazine. "If Provencal olive branches are in, they have to know the color schemes . . . It used to be the consumer who was buying the art to match the couch. Now it's the art publishers buying art to match the couches."

Those publishers "wait and see what the furniture people are doing," he continued. "If they are producing a line of pastel couches, the publishers are going to know that before they put out a new line of art. Twenty years ago it probably wasn't as together."