What services do you offer?

Our services include custom picture framing, museum-quality conservation framing, canvas stretching, shadow box framing, custom mirrors, and more. All work is completed on-site in our Palo Alto studio.

Do I need an appointment?

Walk-ins are always welcome during our business hours. However, we recommend booking an appointment to ensure you get dedicated one-on-one time with our designer. Appointments can be booked online at our booking page.

We frame a wide variety of items — original paintings, fine art prints, photography, vintage posters, certificates, diplomas, textiles, jerseys, memorabilia, and more. We also design and build custom framed mirrors. If you're unsure whether your piece can be framed, bring it in and we'll advise you.

How much does custom picture framing cost?

Custom framing pricing depends on the size of the piece, the frame style, matting, and glazing options you choose. We work with a wide range of budgets and will walk you through all your options during your appointment.

How long has Richard Sumner Frames been in business?

We opened our doors in 1972, making us one of the oldest businesses in Palo Alto and the only remaining custom picture framing shop in the downtown area. Over 50 years of experience goes into every frame we build.

Where is Richard Sumner Frames located?

We are located at 628 Emerson Street in downtown Palo Alto, CA 94301. We serve clients throughout the Bay Area, including Atherton, Menlo Park, Los Altos, and San Francisco.

Do you only serve Palo Alto?

No — while our studio is in Palo Alto, we serve clients throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. We regularly work with clients from Atherton, Menlo Park, Los Altos, and beyond, and offer delivery and installation throughout the region.

Which offers the best protection for your artwork: Glass vs. Plexiglass vs. Optium Museum Acrylic?

Sep 5

Written By Emilie Dettamanti

When you're investing in a piece of art, the frame isn't the only thing protecting it. The material covering the front of the artwork—called glazing—can have a significant impact on its long-term preservation and how it looks on your wall.

One of the most common questions we hear in our framing studio is: "Should I use glass or plexiglass?"

Our answer is straightforward: we don't recommend glass, and we no longer offer it at Sumner Frames. Instead, we recommend acrylic glazing, and for artwork where protection and presentation are especially important, our preferred choice is Optium Museum Acrylic. Here's why.

Why We Don't Recommend Glass for Picture Framing

Glass has been the traditional choice for picture framing for generations, but that doesn't mean it's the best option. In our experience, glass has several significant disadvantages compared with today's high-performance acrylic glazing.

Glass Is Heavy

Glass is considerably heavier than acrylic, and the difference becomes especially noticeable with larger frames. A heavy piece of framed artwork puts more weight on the wall and makes the frame more difficult to handle, transport, and install. With large artwork, the weight of the glazing can become a substantial part of the overall weight of the frame.

Glass Can Break

This is perhaps the most obvious disadvantage. Glass can break during transportation, installation, or simply as the result of an accident. A broken pane can potentially damage the artwork inside the frame and creates a safety hazard. Acrylic glazing is shatter-resistant, making it a much safer choice—particularly for large artwork, homes with children or pets, and pieces displayed in high-traffic areas.

Ordinary Glass Offers a Poor Viewing Experience

Standard glass can produce distracting reflections, making it harder to see the artwork clearly. This can be especially noticeable with darker artwork, works with subtle details, or pieces displayed near windows and other light sources. There are specialty anti-reflective and UV-protective glass products on the market, but at Sumner Frames, we believe today's premium acrylic glazing provides a better combination of protection, safety, weight, and optical clarity.

Glass Doesn't Offer the Level of Protection We Want for Artwork

Standard glass does not provide conservation-level UV protection. There are UV-protective conservation glasses available, but your art is still at risk if the glass breaks. That's why we recommend acrylic glazing instead.

Plexiglass (Acrylic): A Better Alternative to Glass

Plexiglass and acrylic are commonly used terms for the same general type of plastic glazing. Unlike glass, acrylic is lightweight and shatter-resistant, making it an excellent choice for picture framing.

At Sumner Frames, we do offer standard plexiglass/acrylic glazing for customers who want a lightweight, durable alternative to glass. It's particularly useful for:

Large and oversized artwork
Pieces that need to be transported
High-traffic areas
Homes where breakage is a concern
Projects where keeping the overall weight down is important

But there's an important distinction to understand: Not all acrylic glazing provides the same level of protection.

Standard plexiglass can be an excellent practical alternative to glass, but if you're framing artwork that is valuable, irreplaceable, light-sensitive, or particularly important to you, we recommend stepping up to a conservation-grade product. That's where Optium Museum Acrylic comes in.

Why We Recommend Optium Museum Acrylic

For customers who want the highest level of protection and presentation, Optium Museum Acrylic is our preferred glazing at Sumner Frames.

Made by Tru Vue, Optium Museum Acrylic is a museum-grade glazing product designed for the preservation and display of fine art and other valuable materials. It combines several advantages that are difficult to achieve in a single glazing product.

99% UV Protection

Optium Museum Acrylic blocks up to 99% of UV rays in the 300–380 nm range. UV exposure can contribute to fading and deterioration of artwork, photographs, paper, and other light-sensitive materials over time. For artwork that you want to preserve for decades, we believe UV protection is one of the most important considerations when selecting glazing.

Virtually Invisible Reflections

One of the most noticeable advantages of Optium Museum Acrylic is its optical clarity. Its anti-reflective coating dramatically reduces reflections, allowing you to see the artwork rather than seeing your room reflected in front of it. When you look at artwork through ordinary glazing, you may not realize how much you're looking at the reflection rather than directly at the artwork until you see it through a high-quality anti-reflective glazing.

Lightweight and Shatter-Resistant

Optium Museum Acrylic is significantly lighter than glass and is shatter-resistant. That makes it particularly well suited to large artwork, oversized frames, and pieces that need to be transported.

Anti-Static Protection

Optium Museum Acrylic also has anti-static properties. This is particularly valuable for artwork and materials that can be sensitive to static electricity, including pastels, charcoal, and certain textiles.

Scratch Resistance

One concern people sometimes have about acrylic is that it can scratch more easily than glass. That's a legitimate concern with some acrylic products. Optium Museum Acrylic, however, has a durable hard coating designed to provide abrasion and scratch resistance. It is specifically engineered for demanding museum and gallery environments.

So Which Is Better: Glass or Plexiglass?

If you're searching for glass vs. plexiglass for picture framing, our answer is simple: We recommend plexiglass. Glass is heavier, can break, and can produce distracting reflections. While there are specialized glass products that address some of these limitations, we believe acrylic provides a better overall solution for modern picture framing.

And if the artwork deserves the highest level of protection and presentation, we recommend going one step further: Optium Museum Acrylic. It combines the advantages of acrylic with conservation-grade UV protection, anti-reflective clarity, anti-static properties, scratch resistance, and shatter resistance.

Does Every Piece of Art Need Optium?

Not necessarily. We don't believe in automatically recommending the most expensive glazing for every piece of artwork. There are plenty of situations where standard acrylic is a sensible choice. For example, if you're framing a large decorative print and your primary concerns are weight and safety, standard plexiglass may be exactly what you need.

But when we're framing something valuable, sentimental, irreplaceable, light-sensitive, or simply something our customer wants to preserve for the long term, Optium Museum Acrylic is usually our recommendation.

The right glazing depends on the artwork, its location, its size, and your priorities. That's why we discuss the options with each customer rather than treating every framing project the same way.

Our Recommendation at Sumner Frames

At Sumner Frames, we've made the decision not to offer traditional glass glazing. For everyday projects, we offer acrylic glazing that is lightweight and shatter-resistant. For customers who want the highest level of protection and presentation, we recommend Optium Museum Acrylic. With its 99% UV protection, exceptional optical clarity, anti-reflective properties, lightweight construction, shatter resistance, anti-static protection, and scratch-resistant coating, we believe Optium Museum Acrylic is one of the best glazing choices available for custom picture framing. After all, glazing shouldn't just be something you put over the artwork. It should help protect the artwork while letting you see it the way it was meant to be seen.

If you're not sure which glazing is right for your artwork, bring it to Sumner Frames. We'll explain the differences and help you choose the level of protection that makes sense for your piece.

Emilie Dettamanti