Office wall art in the US for law firms, headquarters and clinics

The clearest signal is in Manhattan, where office landlords, like others in West Palm Beach, are rebuilding lobbies around art to win tenants, from a Pierre Huyghe installation at One Liberty Plaza to oil paintings by Rachel Hearn at 10 Grand Central. Companies are doing the same for their own people: JPMorganChase opened its Park Avenue headquarters with five new commissions, two of them large painted works by Gerhard Richter in the lobby, and Fortune's preview of the tower, designed to lure reluctant staff back, made a point of its art.

The lesson for your own floor is where to spend. Put originals where people arrive, wait and gather, in the lobby, at reception, on the client floor and in the café, and choose fewer, larger pieces over a print on every wall. Building owners, see office lobby art for landlords.

Two recent projects set the scale. For WilmerHale's Washington office, the designers commissioned a Bosco Sodi abstract 10 ft high and 13 ft wide (3.0 × 4.0 m) for the tenant lobby beside reception. The Hearn paintings at 10 Grand Central measure 52 × 76 in (132 × 193 cm).

A working rule for a reception wall: let the canvas cover about two-thirds of the clear width, and judge it from the entrance, not from the desk. A wall of 4–5 m (13–16 ft) takes one canvas of about 3 m or a matched pair; a lift lobby or stair wall wants a tall vertical. Textured and plaster work always travels stretched or framed. More in the US size guide and lobby and reception art.

Washington's large law firms show the pattern. The Washington interiors firm LSM builds art programmes for them with an art consultant, choosing work that “stemmed from the origins of the client”. At Covington & Burling's office in 30 Hudson Yards, a commissioned drip painting greets visitors at the reception stair, prints hang in the waiting area and photography lines the client corridor.

Not every firm hangs paintings. One Midtown financial office uses pleated marble walls as its statement, and the Minneapolis law firm Maslon built its office around its founders' midcentury collection. So start from what you have: where the architecture is the feature, keep art to meeting rooms and corridors; where there is a collection, commission the walls it cannot fill, in a palette that sits with it. A conservative practice reads best in landscape and calm abstraction, a creative firm in stronger colour. See corporate artwork for offices and boardrooms.

American employers are careful about what their walls say. A US labour-law newsletter warns that politically charged symbols in office décor can lead to discrimination claims, and recommends one décor policy for everyone. Treat commissioned art the same way: no flags, party politics or religious imagery unless that is the institution's purpose. Nudes stay out of shared space too; even at home, one US designer and her readers find them polarising and keep them to bedrooms and bathrooms.

Within those lines the choice is wide. Abstraction is the safe default, though one New York designer warned in 2024 that a heavy focus on it was starting to look dated, and another firm called overused tan, white and grey “bland, uninspired and ordinary”. So mix abstraction with landscape and texture, warm the palette, and consider regional subjects: a Sioux Falls law firm hung work by regional artists on South Dakota and Upper Midwest themes. More in US taste and styles.

Local stories are how many American offices make their walls their own. In Tempe, the lobby of The Beam on Farmer carries an illustrator's hand-sketched drawings of local landmarks, and Indianapolis's Eskenazi Health draws much of its collection from local artists and makers. A painting can carry the same story: your skyline, your first building, the view from the boardroom, a photograph from the company archive, or your logo, crest or brand pattern worked into an abstract.

Send the image on WhatsApp with the wall width; we tell you how it will translate to canvas and paint it by hand once you are happy. You need to own the image or have permission to use it, and a design can be kept exclusive to your company if you ask before we start. More on paintings from your own image.

American hospitals treat art as part of care. Cleveland Clinic shows painting, photography and sculpture in lobbies, waiting areas and care spaces at nearly all its locations, and in its 2024 survey of more than 1,000 people nearly 75% said the art improved their mood and lowered stress.

Clinic walls are smaller than lobby walls. Southern California placements include a framed photograph of about 112 × 163 cm (44 × 64 in) at a San Diego medical centre and a photographic canvas of about 122 × 81 cm (48 × 32 in) at a La Jolla hospital: one piece of that size per waiting-room wall, and a series along a corridor. Choose quiet colour and recognisable nature, nothing that could read as clinical or unsettling. See hospital artwork and art for senior living.

Public art in the US runs on set percentages. Since 1962 the federal GSA's Art in Architecture programme has set aside half a percent of the projected construction cost of federal buildings, for artists on its registry of US citizens and permanent residents, and the University of Texas at Austin funds its Landmarks programme with 1–2% of capital project budgets. That money buys landmark pieces: JFK's New Terminal One has commissioned sculpture, mosaics and murals rather than paintings.

The everyday walls, a department's offices, a dean's suite, a staff corridor, usually sit outside those funds, so ask early which budget pays for them. The State Department's Art in Embassies programme allocates art by each building's gross square footage, a sensible way to budget any public building. For those walls we paint to the interior's brief and palette, so the public commission and the working floors read as one building.

Many American offices reach their art through the interior designer or architect, often with an art consultant beside them, and we fit into that team. Send the plan or wall photos with widths and ceiling heights; we suggest works from some 1,300 catalogue designs or design pieces for the project, with a price for each piece, usually within one business day. Designers approve shop drawings before any custom piece is made; with us the photographs or video of each stage play that part, sent straight to whoever approves, and the next stage starts only after a yes. If you are the consultant, see art production for art consultants.

Stretched or framed canvases (gold, silver, black, white or wood) arrive ready to hang; rolled is lighter and more economical for the largest pieces. Hotels and restaurants are covered in US hotels and restaurants, the wider market in the US 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.