Sorry for the sideways photos! I'm just happy I got them posted. I also apologize for the fact that they are bad cell phone pics.

Is there one room you can dedicate to your favorite pieces of artwork and store the rest?

I think you should perhaps select a few pieces that you love, offer the rest to any close family/ friends and sell the rest.

I agree. You aren't the curator. Keep what you love and let the family know that the others are available.

I don't know what kind of style you'd like for your new home, but I can tell you that asian can be combined the MANY other styles. My grandmother was a decorator by profession and had touches of Chinese throughout her traditional home. Maybe that's why I wouldn't bat an eye! I'm the same way :)

I'm a fan of the salon style of art display. Seemingly disparate pieces don't seem so when they are massed. Just because they aren't similar doesn't mean they won't play well together. I would give yourself time for that. Wait until after the baby and the newness has leveled, and you find a renewed interest in looking at those pieces. Store them somewhere until you are in a calm place to make decisions you won't regret :)

Put them all in the garage/basement and pretend they don't exist. Decorate how you want to decorate, then take them out and see if any of them fit. You will drive yourself nuts trying to do it a$$ backwards (pardon my French). I know, I've done it.

Good advice. Decorate with the pieces that you love - those that have a special meaning to you or touch you in some way.

IMO, the most interesting homes are the eclectic ones, where the pieces have a story which the owner can relate to you. Those are the homes I remember.

I agree, keep the pieces you really like and offer the rest to family, then friends. The rest you can donate. Someone here once suggested to me to offer unwanted wall art to a senior center, or else just donate them to thrift stores. You are under no obligation to curate these forever.

Are the pieces something you enjoy going through? If your new house has a spare corner, and it were me, I would create a small artist corner. Just stack all the pieces on the floor, some on the wall and if you have any of her supplies, give them a place on a small piece of furniture. Or buy an easel and place a couple on it to change out as your interest in them change.

I'm an artist, and would love to have my kids do this rather than toss them to whomever. Plus my corner in the office is like this, always more than one in process with many others finished. They don't have to all be on display.

If some are really loved by a family member or very close friend, it would be an honor to have them shared though.

I had a cracked egg period also. Back in the late 60s. Do you know when she did these? Maybe it was a "thing" during that time.

I know this is not quite the same, but my DD is a budding artist. I have stored many of her works of art in a special binder I got from Michaels; the ones that speak to me I have put on a wall in my hallway as a gallery wall with plenty of space for it to grow over time.

It looks like several of your grandma's paintings could be similarly kept in a portfolio of sorts instead of each under glass. That way you could store more of them without giving them all wall space. First and foremost, your home is your home and should reflect you and your family's taste and experiences, not a shrine to the past and your grandma would not want it that way either.

As for the WWII asian themed artwork, I am sure there would be a market for it on eBay if you were in need of some extra income. My brother has been an eBay seller/collector of WWII memorabilia (mostly old war photos) for years and there are many collectors from that era. And, if you have mixed feelings about selling off your grandparent's heirlooms, put the proceeds in a college fund for your baby, setting aside 1-2 pieces for your children, and so the heirlooms would still be a gift towards the next generation.

could you donate some/all of the paintings to a local museum?

I'm going to attempt to foist off as many as I can on other family members. I spent some time today looking at eclectic art displays in living rooms. I think I can pull it off with the pieces I love the most. My style trends to "Anthropologie" anyway which is often a strange collection of decorative items. (My entire closet is Anthro/Free People and I'm pretty wild with mixing and matching with my clothes.)

There is no way I could sell these things. Maybe one day, but not right now.

What I am thinking of doing is having a "rotating collection" like someone mentioned. Who says once I hang it that particular piece has to stay there. So patching holes will drive my husband crazy but if I change once every 6-8 months it's not that bad. :)

we have alot of family artwork... too many pictures to hang/wouldn't want to display some of it... but, can't get rid of it either... have quite a few pictures hanging in the unfinished portion of our basement!! (it is relatively clean and very dry!)

You said "There is no way I could sell these things." Maybe it's because I'm older (late 50's) but I've come to know that even though I sell/give things that belonged to my parents or grandparents, it doesn't mean that I'm letting them go emotionally. My mom's taste in decor and art was hers, not mine. But some practical items - like her scissors - I cherish! I use them every single day and think of her.

Please know that you don't have to do anything with the paintings right now. We have a bunch in our (insulated and finished) attic. We put bubble-wrap or cardboard between each frame and the smaller ones are protected that way but in boxes. Given that you are about to be a new mother (Yay!) you might not have time to go through them for several years. If you have the space to store them, then that would be the easiest solution.

As for selling - a wise person on the organizing forum suggested taking a photo before selling. That is what we did with lamps from the '50s. Just a thought.

Exactly. You will be a different person 20 years from now, and still different 20 after that, and so will your relatives, including upcoming generations. Research how best to store the ones you don't want to display and conserve these family heirlooms the future--for yourself and for others.

BTW, good original art is expensive. You cannot replace these items by picking up something at HomeGoods that can be cycled to landfill without regret when your tastes change.

Funny thing about paintings.... especially family paintings. There are people who will go to great lengths to keep them in a family and pass them down through the generations.

My great uncle was an artist who painted in oils in the late 1800's . He used to be a barber and had them all throughout his barbershop back in the day. He started selling some of them in Chicago to a department store.
He used the money to help supplement his income.

My grandmother wanted one particular painting of his that was in his home and when he died he left it to her. She also had a few smaller ones that she gave to my mom who eventually passed down to us kids.

The large painting my grandma had was recently passed down from my uncle (who had no kids of his own) to my sister. She spent a fortune getting the painting back in shape by a curator. The curator commented that the frame itself was very valuable but not the painting.

In spite of that we all have memories of that picture hanging in my grandma's living room. In the meantime, I found several of his paintings for sale on Ebay after deciding to look for them. Apparently they have been coming up from other estate sales. Since we all recognized his signature on the paintings we knew they were his. Since I am one of six sibs we have had to decide who is going to buy each one.

Since I found his paintings online, I have been letting my sibs buy them. I havent found one that I really liked yet. And so far the ones that they bought fit their individual homes. Still waiting for one I like!

Totally ... I am the keeper of my grandfather's and grandmother's artwork .. my Mom passed them on to me when she moved into a smaller house, since I've had the most interest in them.

My grandfather is a "listed" artist and is well-known locally, no one knew his wife was an artist too. I have donated pieces of both of their art to a locate Art Museum and local cancer hospital.

And since I am at the point in my life where I worry what will happen to them when I am gone (my sisters have plenty of pieces and don't want more, and my nieces have picked out some pieces just to have, but aren't really interested) ... I have started to sell them.

I've had local art gallery owners come out and go through them .. I've sold pieces to friends who would have never bought any original art if I hadn't told them to come look, and recently I've been selling pieces here and there on Ebay. I seem to have found that his student male "body studies" sell really well on Ebay, this was surprising.

I still have over 100 pieces ... so will continue to find new ways to sell them, so people will hang them on their walls and enjoy them. My walls are already filled with them!

So when you are ready to let go of some, there are all kinds of possibilities.