Beautiful Free Vintage Art for Your Home (2024)

I’ve created a massive collection of the best free vintage printables that you can use in your home decor. Take a look and take what you want!

Vintage Art Trend

While the design and style of your home is important, it’s the little touches that make a house into a home.

A great way to personalize your home decor is to add vintage art.

Vintage art can help liven up a room and make it more interesting.

It’s very popular right now in home decor, so why not take advantage of the trend? If you’ve been looking for free vintage printables, we’ve got you covered right here.

I’ve found a lot of free vintage printables online, and I’ve gathered my favorite ones here for you to download and use in your own home.

This collection will help you create your own inspired artwork.

The best part is that you can customize them so they can be used over and over again on any project.

You can find more free printables in myHappy Home Vault, and I add more vintage printables regularly.

If you haven’t signed up to gain FREE access to theHappy Home Vault,no worries.

You can sign up right here!

Today I’m spilling everything I know about where to find free vintage printables online, how to make sure they’re really free so you’re not breaking the law, how to resize them, where to print them, and lots of other tips.

But first, here’s a gallery of all the vintage art I’ve collected for you to download and use in your own home. (Over 50 pieces!)

Download Your Free Vintage Printables

Click on an image to download.

Or you can click here to download all of them.

Where To Find Free Vintage Printables

Finding free vintage art can be a challenge.

Where do you look?

While the internet is an amazing place, you can’t just go to Google and type in “printable vintage art” and download whatever you like.

The truth is you need to be careful that you’re not breaking any copyright restrictions. You don’t want to download anything illegally!

The Public Domain

Have you ever heard of the Public Domain?

This is whatWikipedia says about the Public Domain:

“The public domain consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable.”

In other words, there are no Copyright restrictions attached to the images that are in the Public Domain.

That’s awesome news for us.

This means we can legally download and print vintage art found within the Public Domain.

My Favorite Websites to Search for Free Art

There are many websites where you can search for art found in the Public Domain.

I’ll share a few of them here, but you can find even more!

New York Public Library

I love using the New York Public Library.

Yes!

You read that correctly. The New York Public Library has free vintage printables that you can download with no Copyright restrictions.

You just need to make sure you’re looking in the right places.

The exact URL isdigitalcollections.nypl.org.

You need to make sure you select the box that says “show only public domain” in the search options.

This will ensure that the art that comes up is free to download.

Isn’t that cool?

I’ve found amazing pieces, many of which are in the collection I’ve curated for you above.

Picryl

Another great website to download free vintage printables ispicryl.com.

Everything you search here is already part of the Public Domain.

Be aware that when you go to download the images on this site, they will ask for a small donation if you are selecting a “high resolution” download.

Unless I’m printing something very large, (like beyond 8×10) the medium download option works just fine.

If I am printing something large, spending a couple of dollars is totally worth it to me!

National Gallery of Art

TheNational Gallery of Artis another great resource.This link will take you directly to search the collection.

Here’s whattheir websitesays about their art:

“With the launch of NGA Images, the National Gallery of Art implemented an open access policy for digital images of works of art that the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial, under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). Users do not need to contact the National Gallery for authorization to use these images. They are available for download onnga.gov object pages.”

I have found that these websites offer vast options, quality images, and good search options.

They are my go-to sites when looking for free vintage printables.

If you search other places, again just make sure the images are not Copyrighted.

How to Search for Free Vintage Printables

When you are on one of the websites above, searching for art, it can seem pretty overwhelming.

There are thousands upon thousands of images to search through!

Believe me, I know 😉

It helps to narrow down your search by using good keywords.

Here are some of the keywords I’ve used in my searches. Hopefully, these will help you get started.

Keywords:

• landscape
• drawing
• portrait
• skyscraper
• vintage
• painting
• nature
• water
• photographs
• architecture
• buildings
• homes
• cityscapes
• animals
• holidays
• winter
• Christmas
• family

You can use these keywords on their own or do a combination of them.

The great thing is that the search engine will begin to auto-generate additional search terms for you to help improve your search and narrow down what you’re looking for.

Check the Resolution

While you’re searching for free vintage printables, the most important thing you should check BEFORE you download an image from a site is the resolution – specifically the size of it.

Resolution is directly connected to the quality of the images or files that you download.

The higher the resolution, the better quality of the image and the larger size it is.

If I’m printing something 8×10 or smaller, I want the resolution to be at least 1000 px. (At least on one of the sides.)

When I’m printing something larger, I am more careful about the px, or resolution. I try to get the highest resolution possible.

That will ensure a clearer image.

How to Resize Your Free Vintage Printables

Now that you’ve downloaded some art (yay!) you might need to resize it to fit your needs.

I think the easiest way to do that is through Canva.

Canva is a free online tool that allows you to create amazing work!

If you don’t have a Canva account, I’ll quickly show you how to use it.

You can also Google how to use it and get lots of additional help too.

How to Use Canva

1. Go tocanva.comand create a free account.

2. Select “create design” and select “custom size”.

There you can enter the exact dimensions you’d like your image to be. I like to do mine in inches, instead of px.

3. Then select “create new design”.

When you do that, it will open a new page in your exact dimensions.

4. On that new page, select “uploads” and “upload media”. Then you can select the image you’d like to resize.

5. Once it’s loaded, you can slowly drag the image onto your blank design page.

When you do it slowly, it will populate and automatically fill the entire size of your design.

6. Once it’s populated, you can double click on the image and it will allow you to drag the edges of the image out.

This is great if you need to clean up the edges of your image.

7. Once you’ve made all the changes you want to, select “done”.

8. To download your resized image, select “share”, “download”, choose “png” or “jpg”, whichever you’d like. Then choose “download”.

Then your image will be downloaded to your computer! The next step is printing.

How to Print Your Vintage Art

If I’m printing something 8×10 or smaller, I’ll usually print at Walmart. It’s just the easiest for me.

I use Walgreens when I’m printing something larger.

For very large prints that are in black and white, many people will use Staples!

The Best Ways to Frame Your Free Vintage Printables

It’s not a secret that frames can be expensive. Here are a few of my favorite places to get affordable frames:

• Thrifting

You can find great frames at the thrift store. It’s fun to look through what they have and find unique frames that are one of a kind.

You can usually find very large frames for a great price too!

• Walmart

Before you skip over, hear me out. Walmart has some amazing frames that are on the more affordable side than other stores.

Don’t count them out just because it’s Walmart 😉

• At Home

At Home has great options in a variety of styles. Plus, they have larger frames that are usually fairly cheap and come with mats.

I always love to find frames that come with a mat.

Using a mat will elevate your vintage art and make it look styled and expensive.

Tips When Searching for Vintage Art

Finding great free vintage printables can be a long (and sometimes frustrating) process, so be patient! Realize that it will take some time and that you’ll be doing lots of searching.

Don’t get discouraged! Keep going and you can find some great treasures that will fit the style you’re looking for.

It’s for exactly those frustrating reasons that I collected these amazing images just for you.

I wanted to help you skip over the hard part and go straight to selecting amazing images for your home.

I hope you can find art that you love from what I’ve curated here!

How to Make Your Own Vintage Art

If you want to get creative and make your own vintage art, do it!

There are many programs you can use, but the easiest way is to make some edits on the art that you’ve already chosen.

You can add different elements as I did here.

I just used Canva and selected the “elements” and “line” option.

Easy!

(If you’d like to download this image, you can do that here.)

Where to Purchase Vintage Art

Going the ‘free’ route to finding beautiful vintage art isn’t the only option.

There are many places you can purchase amazing art, that could be even more of what you’re looking for.

Plus, it will eliminate a lot of the searching part!

The flip side is that it’s not free, you will need to pay for it.

Etsy is a great example.

My favorite place to find paid printable art isBFF Print Shop. They are adding new collections all the time and they are priced well.

They also go into great detail on how to print the images that you buy.

Conclusion

I hope this article has served as a helpful guide to the world of free vintage printables.

And I truly hope that you enjoyed browsing through our collection of over 50 amazing vintage prints.

Finding free art is ideal for creating a home that looks and feels curated and styled, without breaking the bank.

Don’t forget to check out my Happy Home Vault for even more free printables. If you don’t have access yet…

You can sign up right here!

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