ART CAN INTIMIDATE. Often pricey, it can seem imposingly precious—which is why many people take a reverent, by-the-numbers approach to hanging it in their home: on white walls with the center of the print or painting gallery-ready at 57 inches above the floor. Visit the homes of artists, however, and you’ll see that they treat artworks like members of the family, leaning pictures casually against walls or fearlessly displaying sculptures against patterned wallpaper.  That approach, documented in several books out this fall, is one we can all learn from. Marcia Prentice, author of the forthcoming “How We Live” (teNeues), said that a key principle is to look broadly and care deeply: “Creative people are bringing in art from a lot of different sources,” she said. “They don’t feel intimidated by the art—they’re just picking up the pieces that they love.”  That can mean incorporating personal effects, said Stacey Goergen, who co-authored this month’s “Artists Living with Art” (Abrams) with Amanda Benchley. Family mementos are as important as major artworks for art photographer Laurie Simmons and her husband, painter Carroll Dunham. In the living room of their northwestern Connecticut home, the couple has juxtaposed a Sarah Charlesworth photograph with a sculpture by Carl D’Alvia and a work by their daughter Grace. “Laurie mixes a well-known photographer with a mid-career sculptor and then [a piece] made by their daughter when she was in high school,” Ms. Goergen said.  A relaxed attitude also makes a difference when you’re trying to live with art more organically. Throw up a nail and try something, or rotate works regularly. For artists, “it’s not fixed,” Ms. Benchley said. “It’s a more fluid attitude than in a museum. If it doesn’t work, move it.” Here are some strategies you should feel free to borrow from creative insiders.  Introduce Art in Unexpected Places  What do we do at home? We sit—on our sofas and on our Wassily chairs. In his Edinburgh apartment, interior designer Sam Buckley realized that adding art to the living room’s lower half would acknowledge the vantage points of those who were seated. “If you hang art at eye level when you’re standing up, when you sit down you feel as if everything is happening above you,” Mr. Buckley said of this more relaxed approach. “So I’ve got two or three pieces of art just stacked on the floor to give that feeling of inclusion when you’re sitting.” Near the Lucie Bennett drawing that leans against the wall, he installed a cascade of paper lamps with adjustable heights that he found on Etsy, which move the eye vertically. Elsewhere, he hung a small print under the chair rail.  Don’t Be Afraid to Take Cues From Your Décor  Buying a painting to, say, match your sofa is generally considered lowbrow. But in their Connecticut dining room, artists Carroll Dunham and Laurie Simmons were inspired by the squiggle pattern of their Farrow & Ball wallpaper. Its motif is subtly echoed in a sculpture by the artists’ friend John Newman as well as an Ingegerd Råman glass vase. A brown plate from a Kyoto market, a yellow art deco vase by Boch Freres and a sculpture by Carl D’Alvia (partially obscured) round out the dynamic arrangement.  As Ms. Goergen recalled, Ms. Simmons wrestled with the symphony of squiggles. “Laurie had already bought that wallpaper when she went to Newman’s studio,” Ms. Goergen said. “She loved that piece but was apprehensive that he would feel offended that she was getting a piece that worked with the wallpaper. Finally, when she asked him if it was OK, he was delighted by it.”  Moral of the story: Artists don’t mind what you do with their work, so long as you treat it with respect.  The conventional wisdom is that you’ll undermine your art if you hang it on patterned walls, a rule that architect Antonie Kioes ignored in the sitting room in her home in Gstaad, Switzerland, a former train-transformer station. She hung a Rodney Graham photograph from the Canadian artist’s tree series against walls covered in bold red-checked cloth.  “She decided to use fabric on the walls to help warm the space with color, pattern and texture,” said Dominic Bradbury, author of this month’s “Interiors in Detail” (The Monacelli Press). “She designed this pattern, which was produced by Arpin [a 200-year-old French textile mill]. It really helps soften the room. Without it, one can imagine that the room would not be so welcoming and individual.” Two things help this pairing succeed: the pattern’s relative simplicity and the photo’s limited, black-and-white palette.  Walls Needn’t Be White, Either  Commercial galleries are traditionally painted a sterile white that scrupulously defers to the works, but artists readily break this rule in their own homes to create a warmer, less fastidious space. For his Greenwich Village townhouse, Italian-born painter Francesco Clemente favors bold earthy hues throughout, a palette inspired by the pigments in his own work. “He liked the idea of living among his frescoes,” said Amanda Benchley, co-author with Stacey Goergen of “Artists Living With Art.” In his dining room, mustard walls harmonize with a Cy Twombly print (over the fireplace), a Jean-Michel Basquiat drawing (left) and one of the artist’s own paintings (right).  Stronger colors, too, can act as surprisingly effective backgrounds for hanging art. “I would encourage more people to get bold with their colors,” said Mr. Buckley. “Petrol blue or chartreuse or acid yellow—those are really big color schemes at the moment.”
Four ways that painters, architects and other creatives relax the ‘rules’ when it comes to displaying painting, prints and sculptures.