The Samsung TV that is also a digital art frame now has one more reason to be inside your home: real artworks by some of the world’s best.
We’ve always held a special spot for Samsung’s ginormous digital photo frame, the aptly named “The Frame”, which was more TV than photo frame. It’s such a cool concept that it’s hard to really poke fun at it, except because it’s a rather unusual TV of sorts.
Built for people who want a bigger piece of artwork on their walls that changes from day to day, The Frame is basically one of Samsung’s 4K Ultra HD TVs made more for art than for television media like films and TV shows. It will handle movies and shows just as well as a regular TV, but Samsung’s The Frame is built with a sort of passive “on” display that shows a slightly muted image when the screen is off, cutting back on the electricity but still displaying an image.
That image is part of what makes The Frame different, because built into Samsung’s TV is a store that connects to an online art store, allowing you to download art for display on your wall.
No, this isn’t your ordinary TV, even if it does things that an ordinary TV can do. Rather, it’s a little bit special, and the whole point of this one is to display artwork, and then do that other stuff.
Artwork found on The Frame hasn’t necessarily been the same sort of imagery you could expect in the world’s biggest art galleries, but that could shortly change thanks to deals with international art galleries.
Samsung has recently announced partnerships with three museums, including the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in New Zealand, Uffizi Galleries in Italy, and The Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands, with these partnerships adding 62 pieces of art to Samsung’s store showcasing over a thousand.
Most interestingly, these partnerships add some pretty famous artists you’d almost never be able to stick on your wall short of being Thomas Crown, with Uffizi’s partnership bringing works of da Vinci, Delacroix, and Botticelli, while Van Gogh’s “The Yellow House” and “Sunflowers” will be available through his respective museum.
“The Frame has gained global popularity, and we are thrilled to continue to provide consumers with new artworks to enjoy from the comfort of their homes,” said Samsung’s Seline Han. “Our latest partnerships and concession will allow users to access even more rare masterpieces to enhance their home décor.”
We’re checking with Samsung’s local arm to see if these additions will roll out to Australian The Frame owners, but given that this is Samsung’s platform, we’d be surprised if the licensing for these artworks wasn’t international.
Or in other words, owners of The Frame should be able to get these artworks now.
