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Before plunking down a few thousand dollars on an amazing painting or must-have sculpture, Saatchi Art wants to make sure the artwork fits in your space. Based in LA, Saatchi Art is an online art gallery bringing original art from around the world into your living room.
The company’s new app allows art lovers to “virtually preview” the work in their homes before they commit to looking at a painting or photograph everyday.
“For art buyers, one of the hardest parts of making a purchase is imagining what a work will look like on your own wall,” Scott Boecker, General Manager of Saatchi Art said in a press release. “With the app’s View In A Room feature, we’ve eliminated that guesswork by allowing you to use your phone’s camera to view a specific work to scale on your wall in real time. If you like the work, you can snap a picture of it within the app and easily share it with family and friends.”
Buying art used to be a rather stodgy affair. Expanding Saatchi’s online presence to an app introduces a larger audience to new artists and lets them imagine how the pieces would look in their own home.
Using the app is easy. Saatchi Art allows user to search by a number of categories, including price, size and type of artwork. The most reasonably priced pieces start around $100, but climb above $18,000. Once a user finds a piece she likes, the app uses the smartphone’s camera to visualize the piece in her space. Based on the size, the app tells users how far to stand from a wall, then puts the artwork front and center. It’s a great way to ensure the painting you want won’t overwhelm your wall, or be too small. Users can also share the results with their friends and family, through Facebook, email and Twitter.
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Finding a piece you love should be easy – users have a choice of over 500,000 original paintings, drawings, sculpture and photographs.
For the 50,000 artists Saatchi Art works with from 100 different countries, the app should help get their work in front of potential buyers faster. “Artists spend their days in studios rather than in front of computers but they always have their phones with them, so the artist features on the app will speed up the process for uploading their new works and help them to easily monitor their sales online,” said Rebecca Wilson, Saatchi Art’s Chief Curator and Director, Art Advisory.
Users can follow their favorite artists or browse Saatchi’s featured art that changes weekly.
Earlier this year, Demand Media bought Saatchi Art.
