wherefore ART thou, gallery walls

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Life is too short for blank walls. I love art, and over the years I’ve curated a collection. The best way to display it all? Groupings and gallery walls.

I’ve found that many of the pieces I’m drawn to play together naturally and complement my home’s organic color palette without much conscious curation. I tend to like classic expressionist and impressionist artists, charming vintage art, and whimsical, interesting, and sometimes slightly menacing scenes, all with an organic and often cottagecore and dark academia feel. Hard lines and bright, primary colors aren’t for me.

For a gallery wall, you’ll want to mix different subjects, shapes, and styles for visual interest, but artwork should complement each other in terms of colors and subjects. I like to mix original artwork and prints. My gallery wall also features an interesting small gold framed mirror (you are the art), some tiny pieces, a batiked fabric hanging I got when I was 13, and a pressed flower piece on a sliced log. No matter the subjects or sizes, it’s crucial to evenly space the pieces and line up the frame corners for a cohesive look.

Some of my artwork is decades old, but many are newer—or vintage “new to me.” Here are some of my most recent favorite artwork sources that you can shop.

Original art

Etsy can be a good source for original art if you search for original art prints. I’ve also purchased one-of-a-kind paintings on canvas there (no longer available). Check out work from this Ukrainian artist, this moonlight scene in a great gothic frame CURRENTLY 20% OFF, and this garden harvest original art on canvas.

A few charming prints from Etsy I like include the following.

Three Little Birds Print, Geninne, Etsy
This Santa Fe artist offers a range of original prints, many of them featuring birds. I have this one in blues and greens in my office.

Butterflies on Dictionary Pages, Design Printery, Etsy
Several Etsy sellers offer prints on dictionary pages, and I love the look. I have a bird on a typewriter dictionary print by Prints Variete in Hungary, which also offers dark academia themes like ravens. I love the Design Printery similarly styled print linked above, and I have this butterfly print by Prints with Style in my bedroom.

The Milwaukee area is blessed with numerous art galleries and original artists, and I couldn’t begin to list them all here. I recently bought the small Dream piece on an easel, by Roxane Mayeur, from Rosenquist Fine Art, South Milwaukee, awarded Best Art Gallery in Milwaukee Magazine's Best of the Burbs People's Choice Awards 2026. It offers an array of rotating shows of amazing local artists.

Art Bar in Riverwest also shows rotating original art, for sale at great prices. At the recent tiny art show, I picked up a few paintings, including a minutely detailed landscape on my gallery wall.

Farm Girl Art & Antiques
I recently found three lovely vintage prints for my gallery wall—a mushroom, a Van Gogh I’ve never seen before in a striking golden frame, and a tiny bird on a chair—at this vendor’s booth at the re: Craft and Relic market. The quality is outstanding; the backs of the prints are also finished, with vintage paper or artwork. I’ve not seen anything like them. I’ll definitely be visiting their store at 5th and National in Milwaukee.

I love finding original and vintage pieces at craft and art fairs, and it’s always worth checking out and supporting local artists and galleries!

Reproductions

Finding art used to be a challenge, but the internet has made it now easy to locate high-quality, stretched canvas prints from favorite artists at reasonable prices. Here are some of the pieces I’ve had on my list that made it onto my walls.

The Flowering Apple Tree, 1912, Piet Cornelies Mondrian
Did we know Piet Mondrian worked in colors other than screaming primaries? A few years ago I found a lovely little canvas of a tree in soft greens that I fell in love with. And then I was delighted to find this stretched canvas in greys, soft blue, and lavender, which seems to be its tree companion in style.

Impression, Sunrise, 1872, Claude Monet
Monet’s pastel waterlily paintings are so ubiquitous that we tend to overlook how groundbreaking his work with light and shadows was. I have this lesser-known work as a large canvas hanging over my stairs and haven’t gotten tired of looking at it.

The Bell Tower of Bazincourt, 1885, Camille Pissarro
I had this one on my radar for awhile, and was really happy to find this print. I love the colors and the wild feeling to it.

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, The Fairies by the Lake, 1912, Arthur Rackham
Arthur Rackham’s vintage arts and crafts fairy tale illustrations feature murky colors and a sense of foreboding; fairy tales were meant to serve as warnings. This is one of my favorite drawings. The poster colors seem a bit faded, but I’m not sure if it’s because it’s not the best reproduction or if it’s just the painting itself. I also like this eerie scene.

Bouquet de Printemps, 1866, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
When I bought this, it seemed to be just a cottagecore-ish floral painting with colors that appealed to me, but I was today years old when I learned it’s actually a Renoir. The quality of this is fantastic for the price: stretched canvas in a frame.

Carnival Evening, 1886, Henri Rousseau
There’s a story to this one. When I was 22, I bought a poster of this piece at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Over the years, it became tattered, and I had to throw it away sometime in my late 20s. I thought I’d be able to find it again—but readers, I didn’t find it until very recently! I love the dark mood of Pierrot and his companion under an eerie full moon. It’s such a slightly menacing departure from the artist’s tropical jungle paintings for which he’s known.

A Vase of Roses, 1890, Vincent Van Gogh and Irises, 1889
Another favorite of many, Vincent Van Gogh was prolific, and I have several Van Gogh prints as well as almond blossom wallpaper on one wall of my office. I also like Wheat Field with Cypresses. If you ever have the chance to attend the astounding Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience, don’t hesitate to go.

Ophelia, 1894, John William Waterhouse
I had searched for a high-quality version of this dreamy, melancholic print for awhile, and Amazon now offers it on stretched canvas in several sizes.

Red Moon, 1969, Marc Chagall
I don’t own this exact lovely print, but I was lucky enough to snag one of the Taschen poster books in the 1990s, so I have six framed Chagalls in my home, plus some smaller ones. Within expressionism, Chagall is unique, and he gets his own wall. I also have prints by abstract expressionists Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, but didn’t see any reproductions online that looked quite right. (My Paul Klee framed poster is from the San Francisco MOMA). But here is a different print from Paul Klee that I like.

Vintage look

Moody Farmhouse Pears Still Life and Farmhouse Lemons Still Life
These Dutch-style still life paintings are high quality stretched canvas in frames with a hanger, and make for some visual interest on a gallery wall with their round shapes—and at a low price.

William Morris Prints
You know I love William Morris—the iconic arts and crafts textile and wallpaper designer—and now there are many print options available. The set of four lovely prints that I have in my dining room is no longer available, but the linked set is a substitute. I also have this Morris framed canvas print on my gallery wall, and it’s such high quality for the price—I was delighted.

Vintage Butterflies Poster Set, Adolphe Millot
This Etsy seller in Toronto offers a wide array of vintage prints, including this well-known butterfly print set. CURRENTLY 20% OFF.

JPK Vintage Prints, Etsy
I met this artist at the Secret Market at Brookfield Square, and came home with four amazing vintage prints: a mermaid, a white peacock, an iridescent black cat on a moon (the same as my arm tattoo!), and of course Black Cat Dance. Based in Burlington, Wisconsin, she has a store on Etsy, and you have to take a look—the selection is wide and varied, and uniquely antique. ENJOY AN EXCLUSIVE READER DISCOUNT OF 25% OFF IN ONLINE STORE WITH CODE IVY25, NO END DATE.

Postcard Sets
One interesting but inexpensive option for small vintage—and just plain odd—art is cottagecore/dark academia-themed postcard sets. I purchased a set, printed on high quality postcard paper, and bought rubbed vintage-look frames and grey barnwood frames separately. Even if you choose just a few cards to use, it’s well worth the less than $10 price. I’ve just fit these small pieces around my house in corners that needed art (and doesn’t every space?) You’ll be delighted with the images of tarot cards, mushrooms, citrus, flora, celestial bodies, bugs and butterflies, phrenology and palm reading charts, dancing frogs, and more. If you’d like a whole framed ready-made set, those are also available.

Flower Market Cloth Prints
I have both sets of these charming and cheerful art sets, which are printed on cloth (I’ve framed them in the white vintage-look frames). There are also some charming framed options here and here in larger sizes, with a huge variety of colorways to choose from. Several vendors offer these, so just search “flower market.”

Vintage Botanicals
I have a few interesting vintage botanical prints throughout my home that I picked up at various markets through the years, similar to this set. Charming and cottagecore!

Travel Posters
If you have a more boho vibe, one look I love is colorful vintage travel posters, such as these ones advertising the Amalfi coast, the above linked one by Picasso, this one by Henri Matisse, and this one by André Planson.

To hang or not to hang art, that's no longer the question. Go forth and decorate!

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