Bark Frameworks

Bark Frameworks 4245 12th St., Long Island City, NY 11101
718-752-1919 or www.barkframeworks.com
Hours: Monday - Friday, 9 am - 6 pm
By appointment only.

Bark Frameworks began in 1969 in Jared Bark’s SoHo loft. As of January 2017, we are proud to be 100% employee-owned. We work from our 27,000 square foot building in Long Island City. Since we make all our frames here in our LIC shop, we can offer an infinite variety of new frame designs as well as our frames that have become classics. We started out by framing works by our contemporaries, and over

time our range has grown to embrace the framing of Western works from Impressionism forward. We have designed and built numerous frames for textiles as well as Asian works, like thangkas. The framing of photographs from the field’s earliest days to the present has become a specialty. Our designs for mirror frames are unique as well.

Last week we posted about our framing work for galleries. For museum exhibitions, or one-off pieces for a collection, we...
08/20/2026

Last week we posted about our framing work for galleries. For museum exhibitions, or one-off pieces for a collection, we often experiment more freely with profile design. Regardless of the complexity of the frame style, we can mill any design in a variety of wood species -- we use mainly domestic hardwoods such as maple, walnut, and red birch. We finish these custom designs in a vast array of treatments -- from sprayed maple, to a hand-painted mahogany frame, to polished aluminum or gilded wood. Here, a look at some of our museum collaborations over recent years.



Images:
Saya Woolfalk: Tumbling into Landscape, The Newark Museum of Art, 2021. Photo by Richard Goodbody. Central panel artwork: Saya Woolfalk, Self-Portrait of the Artist (with words by Sojourner Truth), 2021, 2022.2, Collection of The Newark Museum of Art, © Saya Woolfalk. Photographs by Irving Penn at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; artwork by Claude Monet at the Brooklyn Museum; a frame profile designed for the The Jewish Museum; art by Charles Sheeler at The Whitney Museum of American Art; art by Edward Hopper at the Whitney Museum; art by Joseph Delaney and Claude Clark at the Greenville County Museum of Art. Original corner samples designs for museums: Bark Frameworks archive.

We are proud to collaborate with some of the world's top museums and galleries, many of them here in New York. When work...
08/13/2026

We are proud to collaborate with some of the world's top museums and galleries, many of them here in New York. When working with galleries -- and their artists -- we often create more streamlined designs to protect the work in refined way, letting the composition and/or color of the art take center stage.

Our gallery (or stem) profiles can be milled in a variety of wood species, and scaled to nearly any size. Often, a species is selected for the visual pattern of the grain, which can then be accentuated or concealed by how it is finished. Occasionally, a flat-faced gallery frame is given a more dramatic gilded finish. Beyond hardwoods, we also work in metal: aluminum, brass, copper, and zinc. A range of profiles and finishes, from polishes to patinas to lacquers, are available.

Here, a few examples from our collaborations....

Images courtesy of: Hamiltons Gallery London, Fraenkel Gallery; Alexandre Gallery; Pace Gallery; Gagosian Gallery / Frankenthaler Foundation; Yossi Milo Gallery; Skarstedt Gallery; and March Gallery.

(2/2) Chris Mondello, who has been with Bark Frameworks for almost three decades, specializes in hand finishing. In the ...
08/06/2026

(2/2) Chris Mondello, who has been with Bark Frameworks for almost three decades, specializes in hand finishing. In the second slide, Chris experiments with different tones and concentrations of a stain finish, to match a sample.

We can also finish in a pigmented wax (shown here in the last few slides), a more colorful approach to the traditional stain and wax finish. To learn more about our capabilities, click here:
https://tinyurl.com/3cmt7t5x

(1/2) A stain and wax finish is one of the many hand finishes we offer our clients. Custom water-based stains of various...
08/06/2026

(1/2) A stain and wax finish is one of the many hand finishes we offer our clients. Custom water-based stains of various tones are applied -- along with a wiped wax finish, after the layers of stain dry completely. The saturation of the final finish depends upon the concentration of the stain (when it is mixed), and the wood species of the frame. We have a kind of “recipe book” of all the different stains and concentrations our veteran hand finishers have developed over the years, to maintain consistency.

We love to receive client feedback on our custom frames and mirrors. Send us your thoughts, or tag us in your posts of y...
07/30/2026

We love to receive client feedback on our custom frames and mirrors. Send us your thoughts, or tag us in your posts of your artwork (or mirrors) in our frames!

Here, the front showroom of our new facility in Long Island City, with a few of our custom mirror frames, including our Degas No. 5 mirror, (at left) in yellow gold.

Artist David Johnson has worked in our Art Preservation department for more than a decade, and has worn many hats in tha...
07/23/2026

Artist David Johnson has worked in our Art Preservation department for more than a decade, and has worn many hats in that time: from working in fitting, to glazing, to matmaking (and even the occasional frame touch-up!). "Being an employee owner gives me a greater sense of responsibility. I care more about where the Company is going, and what direction it takes." David is the latest subject of our Employee Owner Spotlight interview series, where Bark staff members talk about their work at the company, and their lives and interests outside of work as well.

Read our full chat with David (and many other Employee Owner interviews) here: https://tinyurl.com/52nwf9ce

Last week, we shared some installation images of Nicolas Party, "Toile d’araignée," at Xavier Hufkens. Here, details of ...
07/09/2026

Last week, we shared some installation images of Nicolas Party, "Toile d’araignée," at Xavier Hufkens. Here, details of a few Party frames, during their fitting in our LIC shop. The frames were designed to be deep-set, to accommodate Party's artworks and decorative elements of the frame, like a gilded lip. A nearly 1" space between artwork and glazing as also allotted for -- space between the pastels and the Tru Vue glazing was calculated based on the scale of each piece, and the needed safe space to prevent the plexi from bowing and touching the art surface.

Variations on our Lehman III and F-V profiles were used, with a significant buildup on the back end to create the depth needed. The frames were finished in one of a couple ways. On some, hand finisher Chris Mondello used a wire brush to open up the wood’s grain, then thin coats of a custom black-tones paint were applied. Other frames were finished using black India ink, steel wool, and a black wax. The gilded lip is 23kt yellow gold over red clay, with a medium rub finish.

(2/2) In working with the artist on these designs, Party was looking for frames with a European or Dutch aesthetic, some...
06/30/2026

(2/2) In working with the artist on these designs, Party was looking for frames with a European or Dutch aesthetic, something different from his usual gilded frames. Party worked with designer Dareece Walker, who used both our Lehman III and F-V profiles -- shown here -- as the basis for his designs, which include steps and gilding (worth noting: our Lehman profiles were originally designed by Laurence Kanter and Bark Frameworks founder Jared Bark for works on paper in the Robert Lehman Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

(1/2) Swiss-born multidisciplinary artist Nicolas Party paints everyday objects and scenes in a pared down style, satur...
06/30/2026

(1/2) Swiss-born multidisciplinary artist Nicolas Party paints everyday objects and scenes in a pared down style, saturating his subjects in deep colors. Bark recently collaborated with Party to frame his exhibition, "Toile d’araignée," at Xavier Hufkens in Brussels. Images of the works in situ at the gallery are shown here.

Many of frames we designed for this show are finished in dark treatments, with an inner strip gilded in yellow gold over red bole, with a medium finish. The effect is arresting -- glimmers of gilding mirror the hues in Party's works, the gold square further outlining and emphasizing the art. If you happen to be in Brussels, we hope you stop by to view them! https://tinyurl.com/3cux9cce

Photographs by Allard Bovenberg, courtesy of Xavier Hufkens.

Continued from last week: Today, our final red birch frame with a gilded strip, made for the collector’s watercolor port...
06/23/2026

Continued from last week: Today, our final red birch frame with a gilded strip, made for the collector’s watercolor portrait. The artwork (covered for client privacy) was matted in 4-ply Rising Warm White; and Optium Museum Acrylic glazing was used.
Our client was very happy with the custom design, and that the finished used complimented the artworks tones perfectly.

To inquire about your next framing project, reach out to us at [email protected]

Address

4245 12th Street
New York, NY
11101

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 6pm
Tuesday 9am - 6pm
Wednesday 9am - 6pm
Thursday 9am - 6pm
Friday 9am - 6pm

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