Museum of the Jewellery Qtr Case Study

Birmingham’s Museum of the Jewellery Quarter reaps the benefits of an Art Hanging System, donated by LION Picture Framing Supplies Ltd.

LION helped Museum of the Jewellery Quarter (MJQ) to create a flexible exhibition space for their most recent IGers Birmingham: Best of Birmingham exhibition, saving time & money for all their future projects.

In October 2017 Birmingham Museums Trust teamed up with IGers Birmingham and BrumPic to launch a photography competition to find the best photographs of Birmingham, taken by the people of Birmingham. The winners of the competition were chosen from 1200+ entries and on show in an exhibition at the MJQ.

LION has a historic association with the Jewellery Quarter. Founder, Martin Harrold, was working for Lucas on Great Hampton St when he had the idea to start his own framing business. So we were pleased to play an integral part in this venture by donating and installing the Art Hanging System to make the installation of this and future exhibitions quicker and much less expensive.

LION is a renowned supplier of everything to frame and hang pictures, so we were an obvious first choice for MJQ when it came to hanging advice for this project.

Jack Siwinski, LION Technical Manager, spent an afternoon with the MJQ team to talk them through the benefits of using such an art installation system, as well as showing them how easy it is to use.

An Art Hanging System, quite simply, allows you to hang and change art without damaging walls, and without any screws, wall plugs or drills post-install. They can turn any environment into commercially rentable gallery space, and are especially ideal for small heritage settings looking to add income streams.

Time and money can be saved, and a real professional look achieved, when installing temporary or satellite exhibitions as no technician is required, and even more importantly, no redecoration needed to repair holes.

Art Hanging Systems consist of 3 components:

Hanging rail: extruded aluminium rail is fixed to the wall with special clips
Suspenders: discreetly hung from the rail – available in steel cable or nylon (Perlon)
Hooks: easily height adjustable hooks that stay firmly in place and are compatible with all hangers already fitted to pictures. A range of security & anti-theft hooks are also available.

For the MJQ exhibition space LION used 15m of Newly® R20 Hanging Rail – a great, all round, robust rail that was fitted flush to the ceiling. Over 20 framed art pieces were hung on 2mm Perlon Twister Suspenders – a strong transparent material that is discreet against any wall surface. Newly’s H100 self-locking hooks were then used, along with self-locking STAS SMARTSPRINGS for lighter pieces. See more Art Hanging Systems.

Laura Cox, Museum Team Manager for the Birmingham Museums Trust explains:

“This system will make such a difference to the way we can install exhibitions in this gallery. The system is secure, flexible and very easy to use so it will decrease the amount of technical time we will need to employ when installing each exhibition. We have around six retail exhibitions per year in this gallery and we have a very limited time period when installing these exhibitions.

The fact that we can now easily change the displays using the Lion adaptable fixings means that we can add new pictures into the gallery when certain works are sold. It has already been put to good use in the new exhibition at the museum, IGers Birmingham: Best of Birmingham. We have had a lot of comments from visitors about the presentation of the exhibition saying that it looks very professional.”

For information on Art Hanging Systems and how they can help your gallery space transition between exhibits, or even transform your own setting into a commercial gallery space call LION on 0121 773 1230 or email info@lionpic.co.uk