How to Clean and Care for Canvas Prints

A well-made canvas print asks very little of you. Printed with archival pigment inks on a 380 gsm poly-cotton canvas and stretched over kiln-dried pine, it is built to hang for decades without fading, sagging or yellowing. But "very little" is not nothing. A few habits, most of them about what not to do, will keep the surface looking exactly as it did the day it arrived.

Here is how we care for canvases in the workshop and how we recommend you care for them at home.

Dusting: the only regular maintenance it needs

Dust is the one thing every canvas collects, and it is also the easiest to deal with. Every few weeks, or whenever you dust the shelves nearby, give the canvas a light pass with one of the following:

• A clean, dry microfibre cloth, used flat and with almost no pressure
• A soft natural-bristle brush, the kind sold for dusting keyboards or camera lenses
• A feather duster for larger pieces, working from top to bottom

Move in one direction rather than scrubbing in circles, and let the weight of the cloth do the work. The printed surface is tougher than it looks, but it is still a textile, and grinding dust into the weave with pressure is how fine scratches appear over years.

Do not forget the top edge of the frame or stretcher bar. Dust settles there first and, on dark frames, shows quickly.

No liquids, no sprays, no exceptions

This is the rule people most often break, usually with good intentions. Water, glass cleaner, furniture polish, all-purpose spray and even a slightly damp cloth can all damage a canvas print:

• Moisture soaks into the cotton fibres and can leave a tide mark as it dries.
• Solvents in household cleaners can lift or dull pigment inks.
• Spraying anything near the canvas sends a fine mist onto the surface, which you may not notice until it dries unevenly.

If something does land on the canvas, a splash of coffee or a fingerprint, act quickly but gently. Blot, do not rub, with a dry cloth. For a fingerprint or a light smudge, a clean dry microfibre cloth usually lifts it. For a stubborn mark, stop and get in touch rather than experimenting with cleaners. Our contact page reaches the workshop directly and we can advise based on the specific ink and surface.

Sunlight and UV: the slow enemy

Pigment inks are far more light-stable than the dye inks used in cheap posters, which is why we use them. Even so, no printed material is immune to years of direct sunlight. The effect is gradual and usually appears as a slight softening of the darkest tones and a shift in reds and yellows.

You do not need to keep art in a dark room. A few sensible choices make the difference:

• Avoid walls that take direct sun for hours daily. The wall opposite a south-facing window is the worst spot; a wall perpendicular to the window is usually fine.
• Use the curtains you already have. Sheer curtains or blinds during the brightest part of the day cut UV dramatically.
• Rotate pieces occasionally. If you own several prints, swapping positions once a year spreads any exposure evenly.
• Consider the room. Bedrooms and hallways tend to receive far less direct light than living rooms, which is one reason our bedroom collection includes pieces with deep, saturated colours.

Spotlights and LED picture lights are safe; they emit very little UV. Older halogen picture lights run hot and are better kept at a distance.

Humidity and temperature: keep it steady

Canvas is a natural textile stretched under tension over wood. Both materials respond to moisture in the air, and it is the swings, not the absolute level, that cause trouble. A steady 40 to 60 percent relative humidity is ideal; most living spaces sit comfortably within that range.

Places to think twice about:

• Directly above a radiator or heat vent. Hot dry air rising past the canvas every evening can, over years, dry the wood and loosen the tension.
• Bathrooms without ventilation. A bathroom with a window or extractor fan is fine for a canvas; one that stays steamy for an hour after every shower is not. Our bathroom collection is designed with this in mind, but ventilation still matters.
• Exterior walls in old buildings. If a wall feels cold to the touch in winter, condensation can form behind a canvas. Felt pads on the back corners create an air gap and solve this.
• Kitchens near the hob. Steam and cooking grease travel further than you think. Hang kitchen art on the wall furthest from the cooker.

If a canvas ever develops slight ripples after a humid spell, do not panic. In most cases it returns to taut once the air dries out. Kiln-dried pine stretcher bars are chosen precisely because they move less than untreated wood.

Storage and moving house

Sooner or later every canvas spends time off the wall. Stored well, it comes out exactly as it went in:

1. Dust the surface before storing so nothing is pressed into the canvas.
2. Wrap the piece in acid-free tissue or clean cotton, then in a layer of cardboard or bubble wrap with the bubbles facing outward. Never let plastic touch the printed surface for long; it can trap moisture.
3. Store upright, never flat under other objects, and never leaning on a corner.
4. Choose a dry, room-temperature space. Attics, garages and basements are the three places canvases most often come to harm.
5. If storing several pieces, stand them face to face and back to back with cardboard between, so no hanger or frame corner presses into a neighbour's surface.

For rolled prints, roll with the printed side outward around a wide tube of at least 10 cm diameter, wrap in tissue, and store the tube horizontally. Unroll on a clean flat surface a day before framing and let it relax under a few books along the edges.

A short routine that lasts decades

Dust lightly every few weeks, keep liquids away entirely, avoid hours of direct sun, keep the air steady and store upright. That is the whole list. A canvas treated this way will outlast most of the furniture around it, which is exactly what made-to-order wall art should do. If you are adding to your collection, our new arrivals are printed on the same canvas with the same inks, so one routine covers everything on your walls.