Did you know that you can easily create custom wall art without breaking the bank or even stepping foot outside your home? It’s true! There’s an abundance of websites that offer free art pictures you can download, which you can then upload to the Posterjack website and have them professionally printed on canvas, acrylic, wood, metal, and more!
Whether you’re looking for free printable wall art for the office or for home, here’s a round-up of nine websites that offer everything from photography, classic art, space images, old book illustrations, and even old maps of Canadian cities, all for free!
Top 9 Places for Free Printable Wall Art
1. Pixabay
Pixabay offers millions of images you can download and use for free. The website even says, “You can copy, modify, distribute, and use the images, even for commercial purposes, all without asking for permission or giving credits to the artist.” You can search the website for photos or illustrations, and even narrow your search down to the orientation and pixel size you want, which is amazing if you have your heart set on an exact print size for your wall art. If you’re looking for black and white free printable wall art, the Pixabay search options even make that easy, as you can choose the main colour theme in the photo, or search for black and white images only.
2. Library of Congress
The Library of Congress has a digital collection of images that are free to use. The website states, “The digital collections comprise millions of items including books, newspapers, manuscripts, prints and photos, maps, musical scores, films, sound recordings and more. Whenever possible, each collection has its own rights statement which should be consulted for guidance on use.” After you’ve searched for and found the image you’d like to print, you can check the copyrights of that image in the information provided on that page. You can also choose the file type and size you’d like to download, making it possible to get the best possible resolution before printing your new wall art.
3. NASA
If you’re looking for space-themed free printable wall art, NASA is the obvious place to go! The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) offers a Photojournal with thousands of publicly-available high-resolution photos and illustrations obtained from various JPL missions over the course of many years.
[The above photo features two images that are available for free from NASA and Pixabay and then printed on Posterjack Acrylic Prints. The print on the right was captured on Earth, while the print on the left was captured from Mars! "NASA's Curiosity Mars rover recorded this view of the sun setting at the close of the mission's 956th Martian day, or sol (April 15, 2015), from the rover's location in Gale Crater."]
4. National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art offers more than 50,000 digital images that are free to download and print. After searching for an image, you’re provided with a preview, which you can then either click on the provided link to view and download the image or, if it’s not exactly what you’re looking for, you can look for related images based on image attributes such as the artist or title.
Three more options similar to the National Gallery of Art which offer digital images of various artworks available for free are:
5. Biodiversity Heritage Library
The Biodiversity Heritage Library is the world’s largest open-access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives, and, according to its website, “provides free access to hundreds of thousands of volumes, comprising over 58 million pages, from the 15th-21st centuries. In addition to public domain content, BHL works with rights holders to obtain permission to make in-copyright materials openly available under Creative Commons licenses.” The Biodiversity Heritage Library has its own Flickr stream with albums full of free content that would look amazing turned into wall art.
6. Old Book Illustrations
If you want to decorate your space with with art that has a vintage or nostalgic feel to it, you can download some well-known classic literature artwork from Old Book Illustrations. You can browse by artist, subject, or title. Many of these free downloads could look incredible turned into greeting cards or printed and framed in a child’s nursery and because you can search for illustrations within a specific title, you can download a series of artwork to create a gallery wall of prints.
[The above photo features free photos downloaded from the Old Book Illustrations website and printed on Posterjack Gallery Boxes]
7. Unsplash
With a community of over 210,000 photographers, Unsplash provides a vast library of over 2 million high-resolution images that are free to download and use however you want, like turning them into beautiful wall art! Use the search bar to find exactly what you want or browse the various topics until that perfect photo jumps out at you.
[The above photo features an image downloaded from Unsplash and printed and framed by Posterjack.]
8. Morguefile
Another fantastic resource for finding free printable wall art images, Morguefile has been around since 1996. Morguefile’s About page explains, “The site was created to serve as a free image exchange for creative professionals and teachers to use in their work. This same mission remains true today: we are a community-based free photo site, and all photos found in the Morguefile archive are free for you to download and re-use in your work, be it commercial or not. The photos have been contributed by a wide range of creatives from around the world, ranging from amateur photo hobbyists to professionals.”
9. Feed Your Soul: The Free Art Project
Although the website doesn’t appear to have added new content since 2011, thanks to several artists who have generously offered their artwork to contribute to this collection, Feed Your Soul: The Free Art Project has several unique free art pictures you can download and print yourself. Or, of course, you can let Posterjack do that for you!
