IMHO, recessed lights are absolutely the worst choice for illuminating artwork. You are far better off with track lights or dedicated picture/display lights.

Track lights are much easier to aim, and all of the light they produce is directed where you need it. Recessed lights have a lot of reflection coming out of the can, which is why they work better as general illumination.

Personally, recessed lights to me look like just a bunch of holes in the ceiling, and the more holes the less attractive. In other words, I'm a can hater. But even if I wasn't, I'd never recommend them for artwork. You'd have to spend about twice as much to get the same light quality as a good track fixture, and then you'd have higher operating costs and, if in an insulated ceiling, holes where heat can get in in the summer, and out in the winter.

It also depends on the size and type of art pieces you have. Bigger pieces benefit from ceiling-mounted fixtures, but smaller ones do better with dedicated picture lighting. Track lighting offers the flexibility to change your artwork layout occasionally as you acquire new pieces or want to move the old ones around. That's why we have them for our great "wall of art" (about 12' square) and our main hallway, which we have set up as a gallery space. We change the artwork about once a year.

Start by looking at the specification sheets for the fixture. The link takes you to an example and on page two it goes over layout.

Here is a link that might be useful: Juno Aculux specs

Matt-

Thanks for your candor, we're not 100% settled on recessed for everything yet. And, some of our neighbors have a very nice looking low-voltage track in their entry hallway that we may yet do something similar to. Though, I don't expect us to be moving stuff around all that much, so the added flexibility may go unused.

And, dim4fun, thanks so much for the link to the spec page, it looks very similar to all the sketches I made, and pretty much corroborates my computations as well. I guess what I was looking for was either confirmation that what I was planning to do would work, which I think you gave me with that link, or warnings against doing it for reasons X, Y and Z, which is sort of what Matt said.

Anyway, thanks so much for your help. Our contractor has agreed to make one of our fixtures live in the next few days, so I can go get some bulbs and see what looks best.

-Joel

The Aculux housing in that link is a premium fixture. It comes with a stippled clear uniformity lens to eliminate
striations without altering beam spread to help smooth out hot spots as you requested. It has better lamp positioning, too. Use a good lamp like GE constant color. FNV lamps are about 55 degree beam spread if you need it wider. EXN is the 40 degree normal flood everyone stocks. Almost no one stocks constant color so you might have to order. Philips is supposed to have a comparable constant color lamp but I've not tried them side by side.

One reason recessed is so popular compared with track is that track adds visual clutter with the strip of track and fixtures hanging down from the ceiling. Many object to recessed fixtures with anything sticking out of the ceiling as some trims do. 4" or 3" low voltage reduces the aperture size for less of a hole in the ceiling. It is not uncommon to use a slot aperture trim and have them painted to match the ceiling for minimal ceiling interruption. For insulated ceilings use IC airtight housings and fully insulate around/above them to minimize energy losses.

In the Aculux line there is a lensed wall washer that helps spread the light. It has photometrics listed to work with.

This link shows the slot aperture style trim.

Here is a link that might be useful: Juno Aculux oval slot adjustable