Gallery wrap

The back and front treatment of a canvas mounted in the gallery wrap style.

Gallery wrap is a method of stretching an artist's canvas so that the canvas wraps around the sides (Stretcher Bar or strainer bars) and is secured to the back of the wooden frame. The frame is usually 1.25" thick. The result is the hardware (staples or tacks) used for securing the canvas is not visible on the sides. The sides of the canvas are prepared and primed in the same manner as the face, which may then be painted a solid color or painted to continue the image appearing on the face. This method of stretching and preparing a canvas allows for a frameless presentation of the finished painting.

In canvas printing, the term gallery wrap refers to an image that appears on the sides of the frame as well as the front. The image on the sides is either a continuation or a reflection of the main image, or an otherwise fabricated element such as a solid color or colors derived from the adjacent image.

Painting on a gallery-wrapped canvas

These are a company who specialise in putting photos on to canvas using Gallery Wrapped Canvas

Gallery Wrap Vs. Canvas Stretching

The difference between a gallery wrap and a stretched canvas:

Many people get confused between a gallery wrap and a stretched canvas. Gallery-wrap is a modern style of displaying art over thick wooden bars. It is a stretched canvas that doesn't have any visible staples or nails holding the fabric to the wooden stretcher bars so the painting could be hung unframed.

Stretched canvas is something completely different. In order to have your painting framed it first has to be stretched across stretcher bars. A stretched canvas differs from a gallery wrap. First, the stretcher bars are thinner allowing the staples to show on the sides of the wood. Therefore, unlike the gallery wrap, a stretched canvas is not a finished look to hang an oil painting on the wall.

Gallery-wrap is a very popular way to display art, however, because the edges of the canvas are wrapped over the thick bars, about two inches of the painting from each side are lost in the wrap unless the canvas is prepared with enough extra canvas that will allow the wrap not to cause a loss in the visible painting. In order to minimize the effect of the area lost in the wrapping process, various photo editing techniques are often employed to fabricate additional image or material to be presented on the wrapped edges.

See also

• Shaped canvas
• Stretcher Bar