Six years ago I helped launch the Samsung Frame TV with quite possibly the most epic and creatively rewarding partnerships to date – four extravagant makeovers (a 100-year-old barn, a vintage greenhouse, a huge boathouse, and a floating barge). They still hold up and I’m still really proud of them (shout out to Brady Tolbert for being with me in New York for three weeks executing these extreme makeovers!). This product, as you know, revolutionized the TV in the home and I’m not just saying that as their former spokesperson – but as a mom, designer, and human being who is very particular about the style of tech she brings into her home. Before The Frame, we would have to design around our precious black boxes, but now we can design with them since our Art-looking TVs seamlessly enhance our room designs.
Well, good news – since that partnership six years ago these TVs, like all worthwhile tech, have only gotten better. The Frame continues to be the only TV I buy or recommend because it looks so darn good in a room (and obviously, has access to all the streaming services that we would ever need and more). The TV is very thin and sits flat against the wall like a piece of art and there are far more bezel options (sold separately) than there used to be (aka “the frame” of “The Frame”). Samsung sells many beautiful bezels and there are also third-party ones (such as the one featured here, from Deco TV Fames), so the sky is the limit in terms of design. The display art options are also incredible and growing. It’s a no-brainer decision for me (unlike most other design dilemmas) and one that I’m incredibly grateful for.
The Curated Art Selection
The whole thing about this TV, the reason to buy it, is that it looks like a piece of art, but unlike a traditional piece of art, this one you can digitally change with just a few clicks on your remote. The Samsung Art Store team has partnered with so many artists, galleries, and museums to curate collections that span so many different styles, colors, mediums, and my favorite part – many emerging artists. So today, we are giving you a peek into our family/media room to show you not only the expansive collection but also what a difference changing the art on your TV can make to your room, lifestyle, (and mood).
How Does It Work?
In order to access the expansive curated collection of over 2,000 pieces of art, you can subscribe for $4.99/month or $49.90/year so that you can change your art as much as you’d like (which as a decorator and mom is very fun).
Using the remote, you can search and then choose by artist, genre, medium, SEASON (that’s right), or style. The kids love doing it as well and while I don’t always agree with their choices (ahem) I feel like it’s actually a great way for them to get “screentime” and learn about the power of art and color. You can also set up a slideshow to rotate images automatically.
One Room, Three Ways
Today I’m going to show you our family room with three different styles of art (and coordinated styling) to give you a sense of what the art could do for your room. As you know I love every single style (leaning always vintage and happy) and I generally lean toward the architectural style of the home. So while this house is more Scandi farmhouse (both minimal and traditional), I thought it would be fun to play around to show you what your possibilities are, stylistically.
Style #1: Classic/Traditional – Many Of “The Greats”
While the Winslow Homer seascape in the opener photo is our favorite for every day (and works so well with the seascape wall behind the sofa) I love so many of their other classic/traditional paintings as well like this one by Caspar David Friedrich from the Berlin State Museum. Samsung’s Art Store has also partnered with The Met so you have access to many of the classics and not just the ones we’ve seen a billion times, a lot of more contemporary or unexpected pieces and artists. Our kids recognize many of them from their art class which makes us all feel good/proud (healthy screentime FTW).
Style #2: Eclectic/Bohemian
This was such a fun opportunity for me to dive into my prop house and play around with colors and styles (and no, you don’t need to do this – it’s just an exercise to show you the possibilities no matter what your style is). This beautiful piece of art by Kim Keever is wild and fun (Elliot LOVES it) and brought in so many colors that I love into the room. It’s like trying on different outfits for different occasions. When you have the subscription service you can change it daily if you want, literally. Our kids are not impressed with my more subdued art taste these days so they immediately change it to something really funky/weird/wild which I appreciate (and don’t battle).
Style #3: Contemporary/Modern
The modern, post-modern, and contemporary art collections in the gallery are sooo good and frankly educational. It’s a peek into a world that I don’t know too much about but is so closely linked to contemporary design. This awesome piece is by K’era Morgan in case you were curious:) I can’t tell which one I love more, honestly (Probably the Bohemian because it’s so not what I typically am these days).
The Samsung Art Store is super easy to navigate, select, and display. The curation is excellent – fresh and extremely tasteful – it doesn’t feel like stock imagery you could find anywhere. I had no idea the breadth of how the Art Store has evolved until I started playing around and it was super inspiring. They even curate for seasons and not in a cheesy “illustrations of Frosty the Snowman” kind of way, but more in ethereal winter art and yes, some that feel more festive and celebratory. The team behind the art selection and curation is super impressive and they care about making sure that it has a really diverse variety with a lot of independent artists.
But of course, you can still watch TV on your TV should you prefer normal screen time. With just a few clicks it goes from art to, say, the EHD YouTube channel 🙂
Thanks to Samsung for inventing The Frame and to the Art Store for taking what the TV is displaying to the next level. Click here to buy The Frame at Samsung.com!
This post is a sponsored partnership with The Samsung Art Store, but as you can tell all the opinions and words are my own.
*Art Store Art in Opening Image: “Northeaster” by Winslow Homer from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
**Styled by Emily Henderson (me)
***Photos by Kaitlin Green
I’ve been over here patiently waiting for more makeovers like the barn, greenhouse, barge, etc. They were so exuberant, joyful and endlessly creative. Love the energy and dimension you’ve brought to your TV room through art.
I still regularly reference that campaign because while the TVs were very cool, those designs were AMAZING. So exciting and fun and creative. So Emily!
LOVE LOVE LOVE the Frame TV- This art is stunning… where is the mustard strip long pillow from? adorable
It’s the Painterly Stripe Linen Long Bolster Pillow by Sarah Sherman Samuel.
When it is on art mode, is it “glowy”? Like, will it light up the room like a TV being on?
It’s a little glowy – dimmer than when it’s on, but more than a regular painting 🙂 I think you can adjust the brightness.
It all depends on the lighting in your room 🙂 The more natural light you have, the less glowy it looks. The one in our living room gets a ton of natural light and it looks completely matte during the daylight hours. It’s so impressive! (More glowy at night, of course.) We’ve definitely had a lot of visitors “fooled” by it! One other thing: the bigger the Frame TV, the more obvious of a TV it becomes, if that makes sense. We had one 50″ which looked like a piece of art with a nice mat hung on the wall. We’ve since upgraded to 75″ and there’s really no hiding that it’s a TV — because it would be an absurdly large art piece, you know? But it is still so flat and gorgeous and I love to update the photos for the kids!
I’d LOVE a FRAME TV!!
I especially love the new physical frames for the TVs. A deco one would suit my old house to a tee.
Kim Keever’s – abstract works – are so fluid and embrace so much movement in their texture, form, colour and value. They almost have a life force to their abstract elements. However, they do not fit the ‘bohemian’ art genre, (e.g., think Justina Blakeney for true bohemian genre).
K’era Morgan’s – mixed media works – are energising, too. The colour combinations of the contemporary works could work in almost any style of design.
I really see your vision for the TV/family room here and it’s so very good.
Curious if you considered placing the TV a bit higher to help “sell” the illusion?
Can you load your own images? Can you set it up to cycle through a batch of photos (like a photo frame or a screen saver that draws from an image folder)? It just might be time to upgrade our TV 😄
You can upload your own art/pictures, they just need to be the correct size. I buy my art images from Etsy for $1-$5 each rather than paying the subscription. You can categorize your pictures into folders too. I have the original model which I do not believe has a cycle setting, but I think the new ones do.
Yes….you can stick a USB stick in the power box or whatever it’s called with whatever art you want. Here’s a good tutorial on it: https://almostmakesperfect.com/how-to-change-the-art-on-a-frame-tv-without-the-app/
My biggest question about the Frame TV is: when the art is “on,” does the screen glow? Like, does it look like you have just art hanging on your wall, or like you have a big computer screen with a photo of art on it? For example, if the lights are off in the room, does a glow come off the art on the Frame screen?
Like someone else said, it depends on the ambient light. If it’s bright in your room, you can’t tell at all. If it’s darker then it is a bit more obvious, but our fix was to hang a library light above the Frame so that it looks like the picture is being illuminated by that fixture instead of it being a TV. It’s fooled everyone who has seen it so far!
Brilliant idea!
If you turn down the brightness it doesn’t look glowy at all, even in a darker room. It’s easy to turn down from the remote when you have the art displayed, so you can see exactly what it will look like and how far it needs to be turned down.
How is it to actually watch TV on them? I keep hearing about the art experience and how amazing it is. But does it live up to other TV’s in that price category for watching shows? I have one in my cart for our bedroom, but my husband is not convinced that the TV part of it will be any good…help me sell him 🙂
My husband was the same, and he has been nothing but impressed by the screen quality (and ours is a few years old at this point). He’s actually said that if we finish a second living area getting another Frame would be a no-brainer.
I’ve had one for years, the original model; I hear they’ve only gotten better. My husband is also very interested in the actual TV part and he is happy with it.
Haha! A couple of years ago we were a household divided where I wanted to remain a tv free household and my husband was ready to not have to head out to a sports bar in order to watch a major sporting event. My compromise was that if we were going to get one then it would HAVE to be a Samsung Frame model since it had come so strongly recommended by Emily and it wouldn’t take over the entire living area as a “TV” focused area since it would blend in. He was dismayed at first that he would have to spend more for “less” tv (size wise), but it’s been a great addition to our household. Just be sure to not purchase before Black Friday and the holiday season like we mistakingly did. Such a missed savings opportunity! We now have Fun Food Friday movie events with the family every week, host Super Bowl parties with friends in attendance, and use it for our art studies in homeschooling. We’ve had zero complaints as far the streaming and viewing quality goes! It’s also become part of my bedtime ritual where I’ll peruse through all of the dreamy selections and… Read more »
You might want to see my other comment about this; it does have some frame interpolation stuff that can be very aggravating, but eventually you will probably figure out how to solve it. For us, the magic was mostly in finding a way to permanently enable “filmmaker mode” but occasionally it will disable it for no clear reason, argh. And you can’t get to this setting easily and in some circumstances it won’t let you toggle this setting. BUT once you can, problem mostly solved 😂 and worth it for the design aesthetics!
Loving the vibe of this room! Can you speak to the issue of fireplace heat and any possible damage from it? A burning hot woodstove next to technology seems, maybe, concerning? How about when it’s mounted above a fireplace?
I’d love to know this too! It appears awfully close to the fire.
I had been dying to get a frame ever since that amazing launch, and when we finally did, the art was SO satisfying but at first the experience of actually watching shows was terrible! Samsung (like a lot of other modern TV manufacturers) is HUGE on frame interpolation, otherwise known as Soap Opera Mode, so it aggressively tries to turn this functionality on no matter how hard you bash the settings to tell it not to. We are finally figured out the magic combination of things to tone it down, but I still feel like it introduces frame, interpolation and some platforms more than I recall our old LG TV doing, and it’s a shame. (Plenty of viewers will never notice or care, but hardcore A/V geeks and cinephiles will often have a visceral negative reaction.) I’ve actually been working on a blog post for both this and some other stuff like troubleshooting using eArc HDMI as an audio pass through for better audio quality with it, too, so you don’t have to have an unsightly sound bar ruining the beautiful art on the wall vibes. I don’t know if I’ll ever manage to publish that (because I’m still fighting… Read more »
This post is as fun to read as it obviously was to make! I feel like a kid rearranging my room and being floored that I made a whole new space.
Question for those who have the Frame- Do you leave it “on” all the time to display the art?
Or are there 3 modes? On (TV watching), Art (lower energy use?) and Off?
Thanks!
The Frame does have lots of settings for when it’s on “Art” vs totally “Off”. I believe I have mine set to “motion detect” so it turns on when it senses someone in the room, and stays on for a while after, I think that’s in the settings too.
I’m also curious about the energy usage when it’s in art mode.
Am I the only one that only really loves the image of the “black screen/off” mode Frame?
As an artist, this kind of surprises me, but I also am a big fan of quiet in a space and not needing a “star” on every wall.
With just the black screen and that lovely ornate-ish black frame, it gives the look of a black mirror, and I honestly love it more than any of the art examples shown. I really wanted a Frame when we needed to upgrade last year but we couldn’t justify the expense. Kind of glad we didn’t do it because judging by this post, I probably would have never used the art display! LOL
Can you link to the model/make of the fireplace that you installed ? Thank you!!
It’s the Stardance by Vermont Castings.
I am curious about having the tv so close to heat from a wood stove. What is recommended?
I’d love to know what that round tray is in the last picture.
It’s the Angelo Platter by Magnolia Ceramics from Lawson Fenning.