Samsung brings British Museum masterpieces to your living room

Screensavers are a reflection of taste. They can signal what we like, what we value or simply what we want to look at when a screen is sitting idle. That screen is becoming less of a blank space and more of an art canvas.

Samsung’s latest Art TV collection leans into that essence, with its latest collection introducing 30 artworks from the British Museum to its Art Store. Featuring works by British artists J.M.W. Turner and John Constable, the collection, available on compatible Samsung Art TVs, includes Constable’s English countryside scenes and Turner’s watercolors, from stormy seascapes to views of Venice, Rome and Zurich.

It is another step in Samsung’s effort to make the television something more than a device for watching content. Its Frame range is designed to function as a TV when it is switched on and as a digital art display when it is not.

Courtesy: Samsung. “Fisherton Mill” by John Constable on The Frame Pro

Now, the wall can hold a Turner. Digital platforms give cultural institutions another way to put their collections in front of audiences who may never walk through their doors.

“We’re delighted to work with Samsung to make more of the Museum’s collection available to people at home,” Lisa San Martin, Interim Commercial Director of the British Museum, said. “We hope it encourages viewers to explore works they already know and discover others for the first time.”

Expanding the museum experience, a work that might normally be encountered in a gallery, surrounded by other pieces and curatorial information, can now appear in a living room.

Samsung is betting that this everyday exposure can make art feel less like something reserved for a museum visit and more like part of the home.

“Samsung is committed to using our technology to make world-class art more accessible to everyone,” Gwiho Lee, Executive Vice President of the Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics, said in a statement.

The collection will be available through Samsung Art Store from October.

The bigger shift, however, may be in what we expect from the screens already surrounding us. The TV has spent decades being associated with entertainment. Samsung is making a case for it as something else, too: a canvas, a gallery wall and, potentially, another way for museums to meet audiences where they already are.