Art for hotels and restaurants in the Netherlands, wall by wall

Many of the Netherlands' newest hotels open in buildings made for something else. Amsterdam has restricted new hotels since 2017, a stop later tightened, and recent openings have taken over a former Palace of Justice (Rosewood Amsterdam), the former Lloyd Hotel (The Hoxton) and The Hague's old state printing office (The Ald). In Maastricht, the Kruisherenhotel puts its guests in a former monastery.

Panelling, beams, tall windows and stained glass break such rooms into short runs of plain wall, so two rooms on one floor may need different sizes, which painting to order handles easily. Canal houses add their own limits: facades of about 5 to 7 metres, with a hoisting beam in the gable for goods and furniture, and ceilings of about 2.8 m on the main floors of a 1711 house on the Reguliersgracht.

Dutch décor advice sizes a painting at about two-thirds of the furniture beneath it and hangs it 15–25 cm above the back; over a bed, the headboard stands in for the sofa. Ceilings set the other limit. New Dutch homes must have at least 2.60 m of free height in living rooms and bedrooms, but buildings under 50 years old average about 2.40 m in living rooms and 2.20 m in bedrooms, and a hotel in a post-war building may inherit those heights: there, keep the canvas 70–90 cm tall and let it run wide.

Rooms can differ and still belong together. At De L'Europe in Amsterdam, each of the 14 suites in the 't Huys wing took its art from a different local creative or institution, the Van Gogh Museum among them. For 60 rooms, the practical version is four to six designs in varied palettes or compositions, so neighbouring rooms differ while each floor reads as one scheme. Every canvas arrives labelled with its room number, with a packing list. More on art for every room type.

Current Dutch interior advice favours one dominant statement piece over a cluster of small frames, in warm earth tones such as sand, taupe and coffee brown, with visible brushstrokes and relief. A reception wall is seen twice: from the entrance, where scale counts, and at arm's length during check-in, where texture does. In a converted building the lobby is often a former hall or front room, so measure the wall between doors and windows rather than the room itself.

See hotel lobby art and textured paintings.

The most talked-about Dutch hotel interiors borrow from the country's painting rather than its postcards. At Soho House Amsterdam, the Cecconi's restaurant hangs work inspired by Dutch still life and vanitas painting, the cinema lounge refers to Golden Age landscape, and a wall of self-portraits pays homage to Rembrandt and Van Gogh. The Bloemendaal aan Zee boutique hotel hung work by the still-life artists Sinke & van Tongeren on its ground floor, and at the Van der Valk hotel in Enschede the room names and the artwork refer to Twente's craft heritage.

That makes a clear brief: a still life or flower piece in the Dutch manner for the restaurant, a wide landscape with a low horizon for the lounge, and sea, dune and sky for a hotel on the coast. Your own place works too: the canal, the town or the building, painted from your photograph (see paintings from your own image). More on Dutch taste and styles.

Many Dutch restaurants are shaped by a hospitality interior studio, and the art follows its story. Studio Modijefsky built the Foodhallen in The Hague around a 'chaotic forest' theme and designed Hotel Rumour in Leiden for dinners, drinks and dance nights. Even inside a hotel the restaurant may have its own designer: Rosewood Amsterdam's brasserie is by the London studio Sagrada, its rooms and most public spaces by Studio Piet Boon. Brief whoever owns the restaurant's concept.

Grand cafés such as Stanislavski, in Amsterdam's city theatre, are tall, long rooms where one or two big canvases carry the space. Diners see the art seated and from across the room, so hang it lower than in a hall, at a scale that reads from the far tables. Still life, oversized flowers and botanicals suit a dining room; a bar can take saturated colour and figures. Dust canvases dry, without sprays. For a group, each design keeps its code on file, so the next site can repeat or vary it. More on restaurant wall art.

Some Dutch groups design in-house. Van der Valk, which describes itself as a chain of more than 100 hotels and restaurants, has a ten-person studio in Waalre that does the interiors of 21 of its hotels, designing its own wallpaper, furniture, carpets, curtains and lighting from mood boards. Where the wall is already a wallcovering, as at the group's hotel in Antwerp, the painting is the accent above the bed or in the lobby, not the wall finish. And with Fletcher aiming for 150 hotels, a scheme approved once may be ordered many times.

We work from the same mood board: send photographs of the fabric, carpet and wallpaper taken in daylight, and the palette is mixed to them. Independent hotels more often work through an interior designer, such as Studio Piet Boon at Kasteel Gemert or Tim Derhaag at the Townhouse in The Hague; we paint to their drawings and send stage photos straight to whoever approves. See art for boutique hotels.

Dutch hotel refurbishments are often phased: one renovation guide puts a typical project at 6 to 18 months, at 2 to 4 weeks per floor. Order each floor's art as its turn comes: about 10 days to paint, then 5–7 days by DHL, FedEx or UPS express, so the canvases arrive while the floor is still closed. A whole hotel can go by air or sea freight instead, with the shipping cost confirmed before dispatch.

Our terms sit easily inside a designer's. The published terms of two Dutch interior studios ask clients for 50% before work starts and for products to be paid upfront; we ask half upfront against a proforma invoice and half once you approve the photograph of the finished piece, before it ships. Sizes for Dutch rooms are in the Netherlands size guide, and the wider picture in our guide to wall art in the Netherlands.

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.