Here’s Looking at You: Supersize Portraiture at Home

Why stare at an empty expanse of a white wall when you can hang gallery-quality artwork that will always keep you company? Supersize portraits of favorite people, even family members, have the potential to add drama to a room in one bold decorating move. What’s more, you’ll never feel alone!

Visit local gallery exhibitions and keep an eye out for artworks featuring faces, preferably choosing modern works that use contemporary techniques, such as photo silkscreening, posterization, low-relief oil painting or monochromatic watercolor painting. Alternatively, commission a favorite artist to produce work specific to your home.

Choosing a portrait with a vibrant background color can flood a cool, open living space with a feeling of warmth. This floor-to-ceiling portrait, with its blood-red surround, has an interesting history. To celebrate her 10th year in her house in Melbourne, Austraila, Ramona Audrey had artist Barry Drinan paint a mural of one of her favorite artists, Antony from the New York band Antony and the Johnsons.


Interior designer Anna-Carin McNamara has taken care to both soothe and inspire in the choices she has made to decorate her own home in Bondi Junction, Sydney. Presiding over all meals in the dining room are two large photographic prints in mint green, on loan from a friend who purchased the portraits from a Hong Kong gallery.


In the bathroom of this large home in Dover Heights, Sydney, a massive mosaic titled “Endimione” forms an image of a serene face from the likeness of an ancient deity. Carlo Dal Bianco designed the mural for Bisazza using the company’s distinctive glass tiles. Mood lighting and a slim vanity enhance the powerful impact of the mural in this artfully sublime space, created by bathroom design company Minosa.


A Chuck Close self-portrait dominates the living space in this bright Lake Shore Drive property in Chicago, decorated by Tom Stringer Design Partners. As the general interior design palette for furniture and furnishings is a mix of grays and browns, including taupe, and the walls are white, a shot of color by way of provocative artwork adds focus and drama.


These superrealist photographs have been cropped so tightly that only the facial features of the subjects are on show. They were created by American photographer Sally Mann and are hung in a house in California decorated by Chloe Warner for Redmond Aldrich Design.

You, too, can create something impressive out of favorite family pics just by using novel filters and effects readily available via photo apps on computers and smartphones.


This modern kitchen for a townhouse in London’s Chelsea area was designed by Maxwell & Company Architects. The famous portrait of French actress Brigitte Bardot smoking a slim cigar while in Spain was taken by photographer Terry O’Neill in 1971. The high-contrast shot is perfect for a contemporary home in the city.


This oversize artwork of artist Andy Warhol is hung in an entry area of a large California home, decorated by Tineke Triggs of Artistic Designs for Living. Curiously, the portrait was not done in the pop art style that made Warhol famous, but as a kind of overworked cross-hatched sketch on a dynamic yellow background.


Why not take unconventional photographs of your family members? This fun shot taken of a child blowing a bubble with gum hangs in the dining room of a home decorated by Swedish firm Sindahl.


This spacious living room in an apartment in the St. John’s Wood district of London, refurbished by Maxwell and Company Architects, features a neutral palette in both its soft furnishings and the hard-surface walls and floor. To add a sense of drama and a shot of color, a large photographic portrait on a hot-pink background hangs on one wall.


This mesmerizing portrait, in an apartment in London’s Holland Park, seems to follow the viewer around the room. Printed in black and white, the image makes for a very strong statement that is ideally suited to the semi-industrial aesthetic of this smart home.

Tell us: Do you have a large artwork in your home? Share a photo or a description in the Comments.

More: 9 Reasons to Buy a Painting

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