Portfolio

Stephen Goldberg and Tim Kollatschny

We collect art and we love excellent design and craftsmanship. When we have a new acquisition we go straight to Sarah Balinskas Fine Framing. The registrar and the designers at SBFF are excellent! Their aesthetic sensibility is spot on. We love how they collaborate and  educate us when we are selecting frames. And we trust them implicitly with all of the artworks in our collection. We were recently thrilled with the framing of our Mel Bochner and our Sol LeWitt. Simply perfect!

Kelly Barnhart

The Sarah Balinskas Fine Framing team are meticulous at their craft.  Their perfect aesthetic makes for impactful and nuanced design applications.  They have been making my art sing for years. We are so lucky to have them in Houston.

Pamela Marquis
Marquis and Company International, Guidance for Collectors

I had a very tricky problem when I wanted to frame a piece of outsider art to hang in a space with a Milton Avery, a Henry Moore and a Picasso that Sarah Balinskas Fine Framing had also framed. After trying many beautiful frame samples, the designer at SBFF suggested an all but invisible solution that was a classic museum mount. It was perfect!

You don’t know what you are missing until you trust your pieces to the care of SBFF. The staff are beyond a pleasure to work with and extremely knowledgeable. In case you don’t know, all framing is not alike! At SBFF you will experience state-of-the-art framing and know your works are safe. Treat yourself and never look back!

Aaron Laine
CEO, Fixtures & Fittings, Inc.
Toilet Salesman, Art Enthusiast, Customer for life. 

The craftspeople at Sarah Balinskas Fine Framing are miracle workers, artisans, magicians, historians, curators and story tellers. They have the ability to look at the piece, ponder it for a moment and envision it in an entirely new way that enhances your art beyond anything you could have fathomed. Their re-framing allows the observer to see nuisances and perspectives not evident before.

Sarah Balinskas re-framed two, previously, unassuming Dorothy Hood watercolors from the 1980’s for me.  The original colored frames and mattes distracted the viewer from the pieces themselves. Once removed from the original frames, it was discovered that the pieces had extreme variations in color due to UV exposure. My master framer at SBFF suggested we show these variations (rather than cover them up with new mattes) as a representation of their story. The thoughtfulness and expertise they brought to the concepts for the re-frames created final products that far exceeded my expectations. The quality of the materials and craftsmanship they delivered for the framing was just as exceptional as the actual art.

As a design professional with meticulous attention to detail, I cannot recommend them highly enough. If you want an artisan to build on and enhance the beauty for your art, go to Sarah Balinskas Fine Framing.

​Patricia Johnson

Sarah Balinskas Fine Framing designed a special display for a work by Lucas Johnson titled “The Two Marys.”  It is a fragile low-relief porcelain tablet about 1/4 inch thick “torn” in two unequal halves and all edges resembling the deckled pages of manuscripts.

A traditional solution would have been to mount the tablet in a protective acrylic box. That was more than I wanted to spend, but it also seemed too bulky for the delicate modeling of the tablets themselves. The designer’s inventive and happy solution to the dilemma of economy/safety:  a shallow armature support that backs the tablet halves and holds them in place with invisible secure tabs. The design allows the porcelain tablet to float freely – but securely. Exactly as a museum would have done it.  Thank you Sarah Balinskas Fine Framing!

Virginia W. Kelsey, AIA
virginiakelsey.com

Ingenious and integrity are the two words which best describe Sarah Balinskas Fine Framing! My client wanted to transform a painting into a folding screen to hide a pair of tvs.  First, they evaluated the painting to see if they felt they could morally retain the integrity of the painting while altering its presentation.  Then, came the ingenious way they creatively solved the technical challenges to implement the design while working hand in hand with all the parties involved!  If someone wants the best . . . I always say go to Sarah Balinskas!

Ben and Marion Wilcox

Sarah Balinskas Fine Frames is simply tops. The company and their superb team have created beautifully engineered and meticulously constructed habitats for our works of art on paper.

The collection of over 100 pieces continues to delight and astonish us.

Sandra Lucas, Founding Partner
Lucas/Eilers Design Associates
lucaseilers.com

My favorite Sarah Balinskas Fine Framing project is a small custom shadow box frame created for a simple sand dollar found by one of my clients on the beach.  It had great sentimental value, and was treated as a treasured work of art.  Small and large projects receive the same lovely attention to detail.

I have used Sarah Balinskas Fine Framing for everything from Twomblys to Old Masters.  The selection, direction and execution is always spot on.  Not only is their framing impeccably done, they are also helpful and resourceful.   They suggested and facilitated restoring a precious document to preserve it before framing, which made my client very happy.  And it seems as though their custom capabilities are endless.

Erin Dorn, Director
McClain Gallery
mcclaingallery.com

Sarah Balinskas Fine Framing’s emphasis on delivering class framing and museum hinging, in addition to precise, accurate information about the same, speaks to their respect for craftsmanship and art. They have regularly executed the highest quality framing jobs for our clients and the gallery. The emphasis on addressing each project in an archival manner is always a crucial part of the discussion.  Furthermore, the level of work that the shop advises on, from the number of elegant samples on-site to frames they fabricate in-house, is impressive.

They are my go-to for tricky custom frames and complicated requests. I’ve had them frame everything from a Francis Bacon painting, gallery inventory for fairs and exhibitions, to a small Valentine drawn by my husband–they handled each job with outstanding and enthusiastic care. They go above and beyond with each project, and I always appreciate their collaborative nature.