Serious art/display lighting

akatsuki

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Aug 19, 2014
Messages
21
I have a couple of walls where I am planning on putting a mix of art - some photos, some oil paintings, etc... Been trying to read out museum quality track lighting, but it is pretty obscure and difficult to sort out. I've found two providers:

1. Lighting Services Inc seems to be the main provider for museums - They use Xicato LED drivers, seem to use double H track and so on.

You need to buy these through a local lighting designer partner. I have a couple of calls out.

2. Ketra is used by the Art Institute of Chicago - they sell a couple of track head units, but are GU24 S30/S38 bulbs.

I have Ketra elsewhere in my home, so this would be desirable from a control interface perspective. The problem is that their track units don't have extensible stems. What I can't find are PAR30 GU24 track units that have stems, louvers, snoots and the rest that you need for spotlighting art effectively.

Anyone have any knowledge about this stuff?
 

fire-stick

Enlightened
Joined
Oct 11, 2005
Messages
616
Location
Austin Indiana, USA
They sell quantum board strips that have a CRI of 90+. Also there are high CRI strip lighting that would make it look pretty good. Aren't most art galleries lit with a warmer tone of lighting?
 

JoakimFlorence

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jun 4, 2016
Messages
137
It does to some extent depend on the type of colors in the artwork.
If there are a lot of warm colors, it is best to go with at least 90 CRI.
If there are deep ruby red colors you may want to go higher.

Teal or azure-cyan colors can sometimes be just a tad tricky with LED lighting. They won't look too far off, but the hues may not be exact.
If your artwork is all teal/azure-cyan colors and you need the hues to look exactly right, you may either want to go with an LED CRI above 95, or go with halogen gallery spot lamps, or sometimes museums/institutions will even use CMH, if there's not a concern about the artwork getting damaged by light over time.
I had a striped tie with light aqua blue and royal blue colors and even under 91 CRI LED light the color contrast between the two hues of blue didn't really come out.
This isn't something I would worry too much about though, I'm just going into the subtleties and covering all the bases.
 
Top