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Toby and Clare Atkinson, a couple of newlyweds, had a dilemma. They loved Matisse’s The Dance, but the painting, with its orange, green and blue colour scheme, didn’t match their understated living room, decorated in dark red, cream and taupe. What to do? Sadly, Matisse didn’t paint a version in those earthier tones, but the Atkinsons knew someone who would.
Her name is Grainne Jordan, and she will paint you something “in the style of” Picasso, Matisse or Miro, in the original colours – or, frankly, any colour you want. Whether it’s for a private house, a hotel, a show flat or a restaurant, Jordan can paint her own take on originals to match the colour of the walls, the furniture, even the cat.
“Our flat is in a 1950s style, and the painting goes well with it,” says Toby, 40, a property developer, who, last year moved, with Clare, into a newly refurbished Victorian flat in Kensington, west London. “It fits in with our curtains, it fits in with our sofas, it fits in with the tables. That was the point – if you can tie in your decor with your painting, there’s a certain wow factor.”
The Atkinsons’ flat has high ceilings, so they wanted a statement piece to make an impact. “I like the Matisse because it’s simple,” Toby says. “And commissioning something tailor-made for size and colour did exactly what it said on the tin.” He is now ordering more of Jordan’s work to decorate his show flats. “I dress flats to optimise their value, and this is just what I’ve been looking for.”
Jordan, 37, began doing her own versions of great works of art a few years ago while decorating her loft in Clerkenwell, east London. “I had a bold painting on the wall, but wanted to neutralise the place to sell it,” she says. “I was thinking of copying a Picasso charcoal I had seen at the Picasso museum in Paris, and realised that if I tweaked the colours slightly, it would go perfectly with the brickwork.”
The painting was such a success that Jordan, who now lives with her husband, Justin, a publisher, and their two small children in Dartmouth Park, north London, has “quite a number” of clients. For legal reasons, she will paint perfect copies only of paintings already out of copyright – that is, those by artists who died more than 70 years ago. With more recent paintings, such as those of Matisse, for example, she claims merely to be inspired by the original.
“Most people have already decorated their house, bought sofas and carpets, and want to buy art that works as well as possible within those parameters,” says Jordan, who spends between two weeks and several months on a painting, in oil, and charges from £300. “And, of course, the client gets something unique.”
That is exactly what Sue and Dominic Morgan had in mind when they moved to a gothic house in Lewisham, southeast London, three years ago. “Our previous houses were pared-down, with a minimalist feel,” says Sue, 44, who runs her own consultancy business. “When we moved here, we realised all our 1960s pieces would work only if we had an eclectic empire mix.”
The couple loved Miro’s L’Oro dell’azzurro – which, as the name suggests, was gold and blue – but the colours just didn’t work in their room. “We liked the painting and the shape of it, but we had already committed to a duck-egg blue on the wall in our living room and oriental-type wallpaper with a strong pink in it, so we wanted something that would blend in,” Sue explains. “Jordan sort of flipped the colours for us.”
The painting, redone in bright pink and blue, now has pride of place over their white sofa. “We didn’t want to frame a print from a poster shop, as that looks a bit naff, but we also thought that getting someone to do a straightforward reproduction wouldn’t look particularly good,” Sue says. “Because we have a sense of humour and are a bit quirky, we wanted something that was just a bit changed, but muted. It gives it a slight irony.”
Jordan does not have this curious – and apparently expanding – market to herself. Fabulous Masterpieces, an art-reproduction firm based in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, also does its own versions of the classics. A note on its website sums up its offer: “Why spend hours and hours looking for art to match your furniture or your colour scheme when you can simply send us a photo of the pattern or a colour you love and we’ll paint it for you? Art that’s guaranteed to match your surroundings, your style and taste.”
“We can paint anything that anybody wants,” says Anouska Hudovsky, 26, who started the business in November. “If you said, ‘I want you to paint a Rothko using pink and yellow,’ we would.” The works sell for £147-£350, and, says Hudovsky, are popular with interior designers: “People are moving away from having a painting they feel empathy with to having something that will stand out in their home, yet fit in.”
Not everyone, however, is impressed by the idea of colour-co-ordinated paintings. “How tasteless can you get?” splutters David Lee, editor of The Jackdaw, an art magazine. “The designers have the excuse that they can get away with it and make money out of it, but, once you have tampered with people’s original ideas, you are not dealing with the art any more, but with the fatuities of interior decoration.
“I can’t believe people would be so shallow that they could have on their walls something that is no longer a work of art, but that fits the colour scheme of the curtains and sofa.”
