Office wall art in Germany, from reception desk to waiting room

German offices have long had an answer to 'Kunst fürs Büro'. Henkel's collection, which hung for decades in the offices, corridors, staircases and conference rooms of its Düsseldorf headquarters, centred on abstract painting by artists such as Ellsworth Kelly, Gerhard Richter and Imi Knoebel. Law firms aim for the same ease: in 2015 a Stuttgart firm that showed large acrylic paintings in its offices said it avoided anything 'extremely expensive or aloof', so that no client would feel shut out.

In a paint-industry survey, blue was Germans' favourite colour at 19% and green came second at 14%, a sound starting palette for a shared floor. A Munich art adviser's rule for corporate clients fits in two words, 'nicht provozieren': nothing erotic or violent. Oberhausen's technical town hall took down three nude paintings in 2014 after about 30 complaints, four days into the show, and Berlin-Köpenick removed two nude photographs from a town-hall corridor in 2016 although no one had complained. Keep figurative and nude work for private rooms. More on palettes in German taste and styles.

German building rules set 2.40 m as the usual minimum clear height for rooms people spend their day in, and most newer buildings sit at or a little above it. Pre-war buildings frequently have 3.3 m or more, and the grandest Gründerzeit floors reach 4.5 m. On a converted pre-war floor, the height of the wall, not its width, is what a painting has to answer.

Hang the centre at about 1.60 m, the museum height German hanging guides recommend, and lower in waiting areas where people sit. Sizes for homes are in the German size guide.

'Kunst in der Kanzlei' is a familiar format among German law and tax firms. Meyer-Köring in Bonn has invited artists to show in its offices since 2007, and in 2015 a Stuttgart firm was hanging large-format acrylic paintings by a changing artist for up to nine months at a time, opening each show with a vernissage. A show like that needs someone to choose the artists, hang the work and host the evening; the reception and conference rooms need a painting that is there every day.

So decide which walls stay put and which host shows. The permanent walls take a piece painted to their size and the firm's palette; the exhibition walls stay free, with a picture rail if you change often. See also art for corporate and professional offices.

German hospitals have built whole programmes on the idea that a good room helps people get well. Stuttgart's Robert Bosch Krankenhaus holds more than 1,500 works and has commissioned originals for entrance areas, waiting zones, patient rooms and intensive care under its 'Healing Art' concept, citing studies that appealing surroundings help patients recover and staff feel better. DRK Kliniken Berlin Westend shows 450–500 works across up to eight exhibitions at a time.

A practice can borrow the method at its own scale: the largest canvas on the entrance or reception wall, one calm landscape or soft abstract in the waiting room with its centre nearer seated eye level, and smaller pieces in the same palette in the treatment rooms. Keep subjects gentle, with nothing a worried patient could read the wrong way. Care is simple: dust with a dry cloth, no sprays. More on art for hospitals and healthcare.

At the top, German corporate art is run like a museum. Thirty-five companies with their own collections, among them Deutsche Bank, Bayer, Munich Re and Mercedes-Benz Group, belong to the corporate-collecting circle of the Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft, and Deutsche Bank has given each floor of its Frankfurt towers to one artist since 1984. Federal buildings set aside 0.5% of building costs for Kunst am Bau on large projects and up to 1.5% on smaller ones; the rule does not bind private companies, and Munich Airport, run by a private-law company, cancelled the art planned for a terminal extension in 2023.

Most headquarters have neither a curator nor a percentage rule. A practical plan is one landmark for the foyer, chosen from an artist through a gallery, a competition or an art adviser, and paintings made to the size and palette of every reception, meeting suite and corridor around it, so the building reads as one. If you are the adviser or architect running the scheme, we paint to your drawings and colour references, room by room: see art production for art consultants. Where galleries fit is on the German art market.

A painting that belongs to the firm says more in a reception than a generic one: the workshop a family company started in, the skyline from a Frankfurt meeting room, the harbour for a Hamburg shipping office, the Medienhafen outside a Düsseldorf agency. Send the photograph, render or logo on WhatsApp with the wall size; we tell you how it will translate to canvas, suggest the size and finish, and paint it by hand once you are happy. Colours can follow your brand, carpet or upholstery: photograph them in daylight next to a sheet of white paper, and approve the result in the stage photographs.

You need to own the image or have permission to use it, and a design can be kept exclusive to your firm if you ask before we start. Hand-painted reproductions of known works are possible too, with the rights holder's permission for a work still in copyright. More on paintings from your own image.

Germany's leading workplace studios, such as Ippolito Fleitz in Stuttgart, first worldwide for corporate interiors in the 2026 iF ranking, say little about art on their own websites. So ask early who chooses it, the architect, an art adviser or you, and schedule it once materials and colours are fixed, leaving time to paint before the move.

From there the order runs on photographs. Send a photo, width and height for each wall; we suggest sizes and a shortlist from some 1,300 catalogue designs, or design pieces for the project, and paint one canvas first if the partners want to see the hand. Stage photographs go straight to whoever approves. Each canvas is labelled with its room and position on a packing list, and its code stays on file, so a new floor or branch can match it later. The wider picture is in our Germany wall art guide.

Each canvas can travel stretched and ready to hang, framed, or rolled; a rolled canvas, the lightest and most economical way to send a large painting, arrives without stretcher bars, and any local framer can stretch it for you.