How to care for an art print

A properly made archival print on Hahnemühle 310gsm with pigment inks is rated for 100+ years under glass by Wilhelm Imaging Research — but the rating assumes sensible display conditions. Direct sun, kitchen humidity, or a bathroom over a long shower season will all shorten that meaningfully.

None of this is hard. Five small habits, none of them ongoing maintenance:

1. Step 1

   Keep prints out of direct sun

   UV is the single biggest cause of premature fading. Even archival pigment inks fade under direct sun over years — the rated 100+ year lifespan assumes indoor display behind UV-filtering glazing, not a south-facing window. Hang prints on walls that don't catch direct afternoon light, or fit UV-filtering acrylic or museum glass. North-facing rooms are the safest; west-facing rooms are the worst.

2. Step 2

   Control humidity and temperature

   The ideal environment is 18–22°C and 40–55% relative humidity — close to standard British indoor conditions. Avoid hanging prints in bathrooms, kitchens, or unheated spare rooms where humidity swings widely. Long-term high humidity (above 65%) is what causes foxing — the brown spotting on aged paper. A small hygrometer (£10–15 from Amazon) tells you whether a room is safe.

3. Step 3

   Don't touch the print face

   Skin oils transfer permanently to paper. Once a print is framed it's protected, but if you ever remove it from the frame for re-mounting or moving, handle it only by the edges — and ideally with clean cotton gloves. The same applies on delivery: if your print arrives unframed, lift it from the protective tissue by the corners, never the image area.

4. Step 4

   Clean the glazing, never the print itself

   Wipe the glass or acrylic with a dry microfibre cloth — no sprays directly on the surface, as cleaner can wick into the frame edge and reach the print. For stubborn marks, use a slightly damp microfibre with distilled water, then dry. Never apply any cleaning product directly to the print's paper surface; archival inks are robust but the paper isn't.

5. Step 5

   Store unframed prints flat in archival sleeves

   If you ever take a print down — moving house, redecorating, swapping seasonal pieces — store it flat in an acid-free archival sleeve, image side up, in a cool dry place away from direct light. Don't roll prints in tubes for more than a few weeks; long-term rolling sets a curl that's hard to flatten. Don't store in a loft (temperature swings) or a basement (humidity).

6. Step 6

   Reframe every decade or so

   Frame mouldings hold up indefinitely, but mounts can yellow slightly over 15–25 years even with archival materials. If a treasured print starts looking subtly tired, a fresh mount and re-cleaning the glazing brings it back to gallery condition. Reframing is also the moment to upgrade glazing to UV-filtering acrylic if you didn't choose it first time.