Key Takeaways from Our Interview with Elise Arnoult Miller of Arnoult Fine Art

LIKE

6

LEAVE COMMENT 0

9 min read

Interior designers are asked to do an awful lot. You’re expected to understand construction, lead times, lighting, textiles, millwork, layout, and client psychology, all while staying calm when someone changes their mind in week twelve. Art often gets added to that pile. Clients want it. They want it to feel “right.” They may also want it to hold or increase in value. Meanwhile, the art world can feel like a sealed room with a very aggressive (and judgmental) guard standing right outside. There’s a lot of gatekeeping.

In this Design Dash Podcast episode, art advisor Elise Arno Miller offers a refreshingly practical view of what art advising actually looks like and why designers don’t need to become professional curators to do this well. She talks about her route through galleries, auction houses, and hospitality, then gets into what really matters most for designers: how art gets chosen, how it gets placed, how to avoid common installation mistakes, and when an art advisor is actually useful.

“You as designers I don’t think you can be expected to keep track of everything that’s going on in the fine art world — and that’s when I come in.”
— Elise Arnoult Miller

Good art decisions don’t require you to be “fluent.” They just require you to be thoughtful, trust experts, listen to your clients, and believe in your design eye.

Why the art world feels hard, and why that’s not your job to fix

Arnoult Miller acknowledges that the art world can feel like a black box. It’s exclusive. It can be intimidating for clients and for designers who don’t spend their lives in it. She doesn’t romanticize that. Instead, she frames her value in a way that will sound familiar to any design principal: specialization.

“I think of myself as a specialist, you know, like you might call in a lighting specialist.”
— Elise Arnoult Miller

Design has specialists baked into the process. You bring in lighting consultants. You hire landscape architects. You use a structural engineer without apologizing. An art advisor, in her framing, is no different. Designers don’t need to track “everything that’s going on” in fine art any more than they need to track every new upholstery mill. The partnership works when roles are clear and the collaboration is treated as a normal part of delivering a finished project.

That point matters because designers often absorb pressure to be competent in everything. The result is predictable. Art gets pushed late, decisions get rushed, and the installation becomes reactive. Arnoult Miller argues for the opposite. Bring the specialist in early. Make art part of the planning conversation, not a scramble after furniture arrives.

Her career path isn’t the point, but the pattern is useful

A chunk of the episode is about Arnoult Miller’s entry into art: studying art history, realizing she’s a visual learner, adding anthropology to get at the cultural context behind the work, then working in museums, auction houses, and luxury hotels. On paper it’s a meandering path. In practice it explains her approach to art advising.

The hospitality piece of her career puzzle is the most revealing. She talks about loving service and doing something special for someone. This is the mindset behind how she describes advising. She isn’t selling “taste.” She’s trying to match people with work they’ll live with for years, sometimes decades. She talks about client relationships that continue long after a purchase, where she sends pieces over time because she knows who they belong to. It’s closer to long-term client care than to transactional sourcing.

“One of my true loves is the ability to offer services… being able to do something really special for somebody.”
— Elise Arnoult Miller

Designers will resonate with that. The strongest design relationships don’t end at install day. They extend into the client’s life. Art can function similarly when it’s handled well.

Why she left galleries, and why designers should pay attention

Arnoult Miller explains a structural limitation of galleries that you might not have thought of if you haven’t worked inside one. She notes that, “The limiting thing about galleries is that their job, their mission, is to promote the careers of the artists that they represent.” It’s not to “give you what you want.” That’s not cynical. It’s the business model. It’s also why galleries tend to be limited by their own roster and inventory.

Her advisory exists because she wanted the freedom to pull from the entire market rather than from one stable of artists. This is a useful parallel for designers. If you’ve worked within a retail or showroom model, you already understand the constraint. Your selections are limited by a catalog. Independence opens the world. The tradeoff is responsibility and risk, but also flexibility.

“When I thought about the possibilities of going on my own, it really opens up the entire world.”
— Elise Arnoult Miller

That flexibility matters for art because projects rarely call for one narrow category. You might need something contemporary for a traditional envelope. You might need a framed older piece to puncture a minimalist interior. You might need something quiet in tone but not dead. Advisors can work across those boundaries because they are not tied to one vendor’s narrative.

Arnoult Miller’s Guide to Sourcing & Installing Art for Design Clients

Don’t dismiss art investing, but don’t make it “everything”

Of course, the investment question comes up, too. Arnoult Miller doesn’t advocate buying art solely as an investment or storing it for a decade like a stock certificate. She’s not interested in that client.

“If someone says, ‘I just want to put money in something and keep it in storage for ten years,’ I’m not your person.”
— Elise Arnoult Miller

But she acknowledges a real concern: if someone is spending meaningful money, they want reassurance that the work won’t crater in value. Her advice is conservative in the best way. She emphasizes reputation and quality. Not fashion. Not a “hot” artist on a meteoric rise. She describes how hype can distort an artist’s market and create a mess when resale pricing starts behaving strangely.

“I try to steer people away from a super hot artist on a meteoric rise.”
— Elise Arnoult Miller

Her suggestion is to look for artists with a foundation of recognition and a body of work that holds up, then focus hard on quality. That’s where expert eyes matter. Even if the value increase is slow, she compares it to the stock market in that it can grow gradually over time.

For designers, the takeaway is not to start pitching art as a portfolio strategy. It’s to understand what your client is actually asking. Usually they’re not demanding appreciation curves. They want confidence that the purchase has integrity behind it.

“That’s your best bet for long-term value — to go for quality.”
— Elise Arnoult Miller

Fuel your creative fire & be a part of a supportive community that values how you love to live.

subscribe to our newsletter

_{*please check your Spam folder for the latest DesignDash Magazine issue immediately after subscription}

Subscribe

Build your client’s taste without turning it into an actual class

Arnoult Miller also explains how to understand and develop a client’s taste. Surprisingly, her first step is not education in movements, periods, or terminology. It’s exposure.

“The first step would be to start looking at a lot of stuff.”
— Elise Arnoult Miller

She brings a “presentation with a bunch of images,” basically an intentional overload, and asks simple questions: do you like this, and why? She treats it as an analytical exercise designed to reveal preferences. Then she takes clients to exhibitions and fairs and talks through what they’re seeing before purchases are even on the table.

“We’re not even talking about artists or periods or techniques. You just tell me if you like something and why.”
— Elise Arnoult Miller

That’s useful for designers because it respects reality. Clients don’t need to pass a quiz in art history to buy something good. They need to get clearer about their own reactions. They need repetition, comparison, and time. And the advisor’s job is to build that clarity while filtering out bad value, weak quality, or poor fit.

Designers could borrow this method even without an advisor. More looking. More references. Less pressure to “know.” If your client can articulate why something works for them, you’re already ahead.

Avoid placement mistakes like the plague

When the conversation turns to what goes wrong in real homes, Arnoult Miller stops sounding like a theorist and starts sounding like a designer who has watched an installer move a piece one inch at a time. She calls out three recurring issues: color palette, scale, and hanging height.

On color, her argument is counterintuitive for clients who want everything to “blend.” In a space that already feels calm and integrated, she pushes for a piece that has presence and contrast. She even argues that traditional rooms can take contemporary work, and contemporary rooms can take older paintings, if framing and lighting are handled with care.

“What that can turn into is a homogeneous effect. That to me is a red light.”
— Elise Arnoult Miller

This matters because a lot of clients think cohesion means matching. Designers know cohesion is usually about structure, not repetition. Art can be the thing that breaks the room open and makes it feel intentional rather than coordinated.

On hanging height, she mentions the classic “60-inch sight line” rule, then immediately complicates it. She isn’t denying it. She’s saying it depends. In a plain wall situation, it’s a solid baseline. But if there’s furniture below, she wants the piece to “communicate” with that furniture. She’s allergic to the dead zone of empty wall between a console and a piece hung too high. If the room has a vignette, she’ll hang a smaller piece lower to make it feel intimate.

Designers will nod because this is the same logic you already apply to proportion and alignment. Art is not separate from the room. It’s part of the composition.

“Art and lighting can never be too large. Just go big.”
— Elise Arnoult Miller

On scale, she argues it’s easier to go too small than too big. She would rather scale up, or group pieces, than leave a beautiful wall under-served. She makes a provocative claim that art and lighting “can never be too large.” You may not agree in every case, but her underlying point is solid: most rooms suffer from timid art choices, not bold ones.

Remember that “early as possible” actually means early as possible

Designers often bring art in after the furnishings, because it feels safer. Arnoult Miller pushes back. If the project is a renovation or new build, she wants to be involved early enough to talk about lighting and how the work will be experienced as people move through the space. Even if you don’t know which piece will go on the wall, you can plan for the fact that a large work will need proper light and breathing room.

“A nice collection is built over time. Usually not, ‘I have a new house, I need to fill it with artwork.’”
— Elise Arnoult Miller

As for creating a collection? She prefers piece-by-piece purchases driven by actual attachment. That can be hard to square with a project timeline. But it’s realistic. If art matters to your client, you can plan the infrastructure now and let the collection mature.

Three Key Takeaways from Our Chat with Elise

#1 Treat art advising like any other specialty

If your project benefits from lighting consultants or landscape architects, it can benefit from an art advisor too. You’re not supposed to know everything. If art is a priority for the client, bringing in expertise can protect the budget and improve the final composition.

#2 Stop waiting until install week to think about art

Art affects lighting, wall planning, circulation, and scale. If you know a space needs a major piece, plan for it early even if the exact work isn’t selected yet. You can solve the infrastructure now and avoid rushed, compromised decisions later.

“The sooner the better.”
— Elise Arnoult Miller

#3 Remember that most art mistakes are basic design mistakes

Too-high hanging, too-small scale, and overly matched palettes are the predictable failures. The fix is also predictable: treat art as part of the room’s proportion system, allow contrast when the space can handle it, and install in person when possible because the last inch matters.

Thanks for listening!

Written by the DesignDash Editorial Team
Our contributors include experienced designers, firm owners, design writers, and other industry professionals. If you’re interested in submitting your work or collaborating, please reach out to our Editor-in-Chief at editor@designdash.com.