How to Buy Original Art for Interior Design — And Why It Changes Everything

There is a moment in every well-designed room when something is missing. The furniture is right. The palette works. The proportions are considered. And yet the space feels unfinished — like a sentence without a full stop. More often than not, what is missing is original art.

Original artwork does something that no material, finish or piece of furniture can replicate. It brings a human presence into a room. It gives a space memory, mood and personality. And when the right work finds the right wall, the entire interior design clicks into place.

At Art Most Store, we believe that buying original art should be as clear and confident a process as any other design decision. This guide is for anyone navigating that process — whether you are buying art for the first time, working as an interior design professional, or building a collection with long-term significance in mind.

How People Buy Original Art

At Art Most Store, we work with two distinct types of buyers, and understanding the difference changes how we approach every project.

The first is the interior buyer. This person wants something beautiful, specific and right for their space. They may not have a clear image of what they are looking for — but they know the feeling they want to create. They need to see the original artwork on their wall before they can commit. For this client, the process is as important as the result.

The second is the collector. This person already lives with art. They have a sense of what they love, a growing collection, and questions that go beyond aesthetics — questions about provenance, about the artist’s trajectory, about whether this original artwork will hold its value over time. For the collector, art is not decoration. It is a considered long-term investment.

Most buyers sit somewhere between the two. The best purchases happen when both dimensions are honoured — when a work is beautiful enough to live with every day, and significant enough to appreciate over time. Art Most Store works with both types, and our curators and art consultants adapt the process accordingly.

How to Choose Original Art for Interior Design

Choosing original art for a specific space is a skill. There are principles that experienced interior design professionals and curators apply instinctively — and they are worth understanding.

Scale matters more than almost anything else. A work that is too small for a wall will disappear. A work that is too large will dominate the room in a way that creates tension rather than harmony. The general principle: a work placed above a piece of furniture should span approximately two thirds of its width.

Colour is the second consideration. Original art does not need to match an interior design scheme, but it needs to speak to it. A work can reinforce the tonal palette of a room or introduce a deliberate contrast. Both approaches work. What rarely works is a piece that sits in a room without any relationship to the space around it.

Placement is the third factor. The centre of an artwork should sit at eye level — typically between 140 and 160 centimetres from the floor. The work should be lit with directional rather than ambient light where possible. And it should have breathing room — empty wall space that allows the eye to arrive at the work without distraction.

When Art Most Store curates a selection for an interior design project, all three principles inform every recommendation.

Decorative Art vs Investment Art

Not all original art is equal — and understanding the difference is useful whether you are buying for a home or building a collection with investment value in mind.

Decorative original art is chosen primarily for how it looks and feels in a space. It can be beautifully made, deeply personal and entirely original — without having any particular significance in the art market. There is nothing wrong with this. An original artwork that transforms a room, that guests stop to look at, that changes the atmosphere of a home — that is a worthwhile purchase on its own terms.

Investment-grade art is a smaller category. Globally, only around two to three percent of the art market can genuinely be considered liquid and appreciating over time. These are works by artists whose place in art history is established — whose original artworks are held in public museum collections, sold at recognised European auction houses, and shown at international fairs such as Art Basel, FIAC or Frieze. The market for these works is international: a work bought in Paris can be sold in Tokyo, London or New York.

Art investment is not a separate activity from collecting. The most interesting purchases are often those that sit at the intersection of the two — an original artwork beautiful enough to live with every day, by an artist whose trajectory suggests long-term significance. Signals to look for include museum acquisitions, consistent exhibition history at serious institutions, the involvement of established galleries, and steady development of the artist’s practice over time.

At Art Most Store, our art advisory team can help identify works that carry both aesthetic and investment potential — and brief you before any client meeting so you walk in prepared.

How the Clear Price Valuation Works

One of the most uncomfortable moments in buying original art is the price conversation. Why does this artwork cost what it costs? In most galleries, the honest answer is: because we say so.

Art Most Store developed a different approach. Every original artwork uploaded through an artist’s account on artmost.store receives a Clear Price — an independent parametric valuation calculated from the artist’s professional profile, not set by us. The Clear Price valuation takes into account:

• Size & technique — the dimensions of the work, its support (canvas, paper, board) and medium (oil, acrylic, watercolour)
• Artist’s education — formal fine arts training at accredited institutions
• Exhibition history — participation in juried shows, art fairs and international exhibitions
• Museum presence — original artworks held in public or institutional collections
• Recognition & awards — membership in professional bodies, prizes, residencies

The Clear Price is not Art Most Store’s price. It is a market reference. When the Clear Price sits above the sale price, that gap is information — it tells you, independently, that the original artwork may be priced below its market value. No negotiation needed. Just transparency.

Using the Clear Price calculator, buyers can compare any work — including pieces not in our catalogue. Clear Price helps collectors identify undervalued works and gives interior design professionals a clear, evidence-based argument when presenting art to a client.

→ Try the Clear Price Calculator at artmost.store

Art Most Store and Interior Design Professionals

For interior designers, sourcing original art is both a creative and a practical challenge. Finding the right artwork for a specific space, for a specific client, within a specific budget — and being able to justify both the choice and the price — requires expertise and access that most design practices do not have in-house.

Art Most Store acts as an independent art advisor for interior design professionals across Europe. When a designer brings us a project brief, our art consultants curate a selection of twenty to thirty original artworks that match the wall, the client’s taste, the budget and the aesthetic direction. The client reviews this curated selection of original art, identifies what resonates, and we refine it further. The final shortlisted works are placed into a digital visualisation — on the client’s actual wall, with shadows, at true scale.

We also provide the documentation that collector clients expect: certificate of authenticity, artist’s statement, condition report and provenance where available. And we handle logistics across Europe — packaged, insured, delivered to the client’s address or the designer’s studio.

Through the Art Most Store designer partnership programme, interior design professionals earn a minimum ten percent commission on every sale. Registration takes five minutes.

→ Learn more about the Interior Designer Partnership

Where to Buy Original Art

If you are buying original art for the first time, the most important thing is to start looking. Visit galleries. Browse curated selections online. Notice what stops you — what makes you want to stay longer, look closer, return to look again. That instinct is the beginning of taste, and taste develops with exposure.

If you are an interior design professional looking for a reliable source of original European contemporary art with transparent Clear Price valuation and a full art curation service, Art Most Store is built for exactly that.

And if you are a collector thinking about the long-term investment value of what you buy — Art Most Store’s art advisory team can help you have that conversation.

→ Browse original art at artmost.store

Ekaterina Borodai

Art Most Store — European Marketplace for Original Art · Paris

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