The lobby is the first thing a prospective tenant sees, and its art has to fit the wall, vary across twenty lift lobbies and arrive while the building stays open

This page is written for the people who own or run a commercial building and are responsible for its shared spaces: the asset manager approving a lobby capex line, the property manager delivering it, and the leasing team who walk prospective tenants through the front door. You specify by wall and by floor count rather than by desk: one or two large pieces in the ground-floor lobby, a related piece in every upper-floor lift lobby, a run of verticals along the corridors to the amenity floor, and something in the leasing suite and the management office. You buy against a building budget with a purchase order, often for several buildings a year, and you are answerable to an investment committee for why originals rather than prints.

The reason the line exists at all is competitive. Landlords are commissioning art in lobbies specifically to win tenants ¹, and a survey of office tenants reported by Propmodo found that lobby appearance mattered more to satisfaction than the building's location ². The questions this page answers are the four you ask first: will it fit the wall, can twenty floors be related without being identical, will it land in a window without closing the lobby, and what paperwork goes on the asset register.

Not you? A tenant fitting out its own floors is on Corporate HQ, law and finance offices. A hotel lobby is on Hotel lobby statement pieces. A corridor-only programme is on Corridor and lift-lobby series. If you rotate rather than own, see Art rental and leasing companies.

The first thing that goes wrong is scale. A ground-floor lobby wall behind reception or opposite the lift bank is typically three to six metres wide and seen from the street door; an off-the-shelf canvas at 120 × 80 cm disappears on it, and the alternative the press writes about, a commissioned installation with a budget that commonly starts around $200,000 and runs into the millions, is a different product for a different building ¹.

We hold no stock, so there is nothing to compromise on. Every work in the catalogue is painted to order, and the painter re-proportions the composition to the dimensions you send rather than cropping or enlarging a photograph. The listed sizes are the starting points: every panoramic work lists 11 sizes up to 50 × 100 in (127 × 254 cm), every vertical or horizontal work lists 14 sizes up to 80 × 60 in (203 × 153 cm), and every square work runs to 72 × 72 in (183 × 183 cm). Beyond those, canvases over 2 m and panoramic formats are normal work for the studio, quoted individually and confirmed in writing before painting starts. A wall wider than a single canvas can be painted as a two- or three-panel set with a gap you specify.

What we need from you is the elevation or a photograph with the wall opening measured, the mounting height, and anything that competes for the wall: signage, a reception desk, a turnstile line, a joinery return. We propose a canvas size or a panel split with the quote, before you commit. Because sizes are templated by orientation rather than by work, treat oversized as something we do to any of the 557 lobby works, not as a filter to browse.

The second thing that goes wrong is repetition. A building wants its upper-floor lift lobbies to read as one programme, but ordering one stock image twenty times gives you a franchise, and ordering twenty unrelated pieces gives you a jumble that the leasing team cannot explain on a tour.

Because nothing is printed, we can vary any catalogue work rather than reproduce it. The usual approach for a building is to choose two or three source works and hold one rule across the floors: the same composition with the palette shifted per floor, or the same palette across alternating compositions, so that floor 8 and floor 9 are recognisably the same programme and recognisably different pieces. The catalogue carries 435 vertical works tagged Corridor & Circulation and 424 vertical works tagged Entryway & Hallway, which is where lift-lobby and corridor formats sit; 102 of the corridor verticals are tagged Calming and 102 are Abstract style, the two profiles that read cleanly beside a lift call button and a floor number.

You approve the first piece as the reference. That approved sample is the reference for the rest of the run, and you see progress photos or video of each piece at each stage and approve before we continue, so the variation is the one you asked for and not drift. Hand-painted pieces do differ from one another in the way hand-painting differs; on a lift-lobby run that is the point, and the approval stage is what keeps the difference within the rule you set.

The third thing that goes wrong is programme. A lobby refresh is sequenced around a lease event or a floor-by-floor upgrade, and the art has to arrive when the wall is ready.

A standard piece is about 1 week on the easel and 3–7 days in transit by DHL, FedEx or USPS, insured and free of shipping charge, which is 10–13 days door to door. Multiple pieces are usually delivered together. For a building or a portfolio, send the quantity and the date with the enquiry and we commit to a delivery date in writing at quotation; the single-piece lead time is not the project lead time, and we do not pretend it is. We ship to a recipient other than the buyer on request, so the consignment can go to your fit-out contractor or the building's loading dock rather than head office.

Finish decides what happens on site. Stretched and framed pieces (frames in gold, silver, black, white or wood) arrive ready to hang, which is what a lobby that cannot close needs. Rolled canvas ships in a tube and is stretched or framed by your local framer; it is the usual choice for very large pieces that have to pass a goods lift or a revolving door, and for a corridor run where a local framer is already in the programme. The practical sequence for a building is ground floor first as the sample, then upper floors in batches by lift bank or by wing, each batch with its own written date. Every delivery is insured; if a piece arrives damaged, note it on the waybill, photograph it, send us the photos and keep the packaging, and we replace it at no cost.

The fourth thing that goes wrong is provenance. A giclée on canvas is visible as a reproduction to anyone standing near it, and those people are the tenants you are trying to sign. The trade has moved the same way: consultants working for landlords describe the shift from art as decoration towards fewer, better pieces as tenants take less space and expect more from the building ¹. Art chosen at fit-out tends to lose its appeal and blend into the background over time, which is the case made for rotation programmes ³; a painted-to-order original gives you a third option between a rental cycle and a permanent commission, because the same work can be repainted in a new palette when the lobby is next refreshed.

We do not sell prints and hold no stock. Every piece is an original canvas, painted by hand for your order, signed by the artist and shipped with a certificate of authenticity. The painters train inside Siji Art Hub's exhibition programme in Foshan, which has run more than 50 exhibitions with professors of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts among the exhibitors; the hub's collection exceeds 11,000 works. For a landmark position where the investment committee wants a named work rather than a catalogue piece, the hub's senior partnered artists' master works are kept as painted and carry provenance, exhibition history, a photograph with the artist and the show invitations; see master works.

For the asset register and a sale data room, each piece is recorded by catalogue code, title, size, finish, completion date and certificate; progress photos are yours to file. We do not claim fire, flame-spread or acoustic ratings for canvas; if your insurer or building code requires a treatment, specify it locally before writing it into the schedule.

The fifth thing that goes wrong is the commercial shape of the purchase. A landlord buys art the way it buys lighting: a line per building, sometimes a line per year across a portfolio, approved once and drawn down as floors come up. Consultancy fees, rental cycles and gallery commissions do not fit that shape well, and a public price list does not exist for painted-to-order work.

We quote instead. Send the position list and you have a written quote within 1 business day, per piece and per building, with the delivery date on it. The price covers the painting, the artist's signature, the certificate and insured shipping to the building or your contractor; payment is against proforma invoice, with terms available on repeat accounts. Minimum order is one piece, which is how the ground-floor sample is bought before the committee signs off the floors. Volume pricing applies from 10 pieces, and one building's lift lobbies usually cross that line on their own.

Across a portfolio the mechanism is simple because nothing is stock: the codes and rule you approve for building A can be reordered for building B with the palette shifted to that lobby's stone and joinery, at the same sizes or different ones, without a new selection exercise. A piece damaged in service in year three can be repainted at the original size from the same code. Quotes are per project and confidential; we do not publish prices and do not name clients.

The sequence below is the one a property manager can put in a programme. Durations are the ones we commit to; the project date is confirmed in writing at step 2.

1. Brief. You send the position list (lobby, lift lobbies by floor, corridors, leasing suite), wall dimensions or elevations, finish per position, palette references and the date the walls will be ready.
2. Quote and date, within 1 business day. A written quote per piece with the proposed sizes, any panel splits, and a committed delivery date for the batch or batches.
3. Sample. The ground-floor piece, or one lift-lobby vertical, is painted first (about 1 week) and shipped (3–7 days). You hold it against the stone, the joinery and the lobby lighting. Minimum order is one piece, so this step costs one piece.
4. Production with stage approval. The run is painted with the approved sample as the reference. You receive progress photos or video at each stage for each piece and approve before we continue; palette corrections happen on the easel, not after delivery.
5. Dispatch. Stretched and framed pieces are boxed or crated; rolled canvas ships in a tube. Free insured shipping by DHL, FedEx or USPS, tracking on dispatch, consigned to the building, your contractor or your framer as instructed.
6. Delivery and installation. Stretched and framed pieces are ready to hang on arrival; rolled pieces go to your framer first. Each piece arrives signed with its certificate for the asset register.

Door to door for a standard piece is 10–13 days. For a building, the batch dates you were given at step 2 are the ones that apply, and they are the ones we are held to.

A complete brief is short. Six items let us quote a building in one pass and commit to a date without a second email.

1. Building and positions. Address, number of floors, and a list of positions: ground-floor lobby walls, lift lobbies per floor, corridor runs with piece count, amenity floor, leasing suite, management office.
2. Wall sizes. An elevation, or a photograph with the wall width and height measured, for each ground-floor position; a typical lift-lobby wall dimension is enough for the upper floors. Note the mounting height and anything on the wall (signage, directories, turnstiles).
3. Finish per position. Stretched, framed (gold, silver, black, white or wood) or rolled, and whether the piece has to pass a goods lift, a revolving door or a security line.
4. Palette references. Photographs of the lobby stone, metal and joinery in daylight, paint codes, and the building's brand colours if the leasing team wants them picked up or kept out.
5. Dates. When the walls will be ready, and whether the floors come up together or in batches; we commit to each batch in writing.
6. Consignee and sample. Where the consignment goes (building, contractor, framer) and whether you want the ground-floor piece painted first as a sample.

Send the six items, or as many as you have, through the quote form with the role set to Developer / property, and you will have the quote within 1 business day. If you are choosing from the catalogue, list the codes; if you are not, describe the lobby and we propose codes with the quote.

Every work carries room, style, theme, mood, colour and orientation tags, and the counts below are live from the catalogue. Two profiles do most of the work in office buildings. For the ground-floor lobby, Textured & Plaster in beige, white, grey and gold (82 works) and Abstract tagged Bold (108) hold a wide wall under downlights and sit against stone; the 95 panoramic lobby works are the natural starting point for a reception back-wall, and the 146 lobby works leading in grey or black suit a dark-metal or charcoal-stone scheme. For the upper floors, the corridor and entryway verticals (447 and 432 works) supply the lift-lobby and corridor runs, and Geometric works tagged Lobby & Reception (89) are the ones that read as workplace rather than hotel.

Two smaller cuts are worth knowing. Contemporary Minimalist lobby works are 28, so a strictly minimal scheme leans on palette changes to Abstract and Textured pieces rather than on that count. Cityscape works tagged Lobby & Reception are 26; for a building that wants its own skyline in the lobby, a catalogue cityscape can be repainted with your city's silhouette as a variation, quoted individually. Browse the tiles below, or send the building brief and we shortlist for you.