The Best Apps for Art Lovers

Art appreciation no longer requires a museum membership or a trip to the city centre. Mobile applications have transformed how we discover, engage with, and learn about art, placing global collections and daily inspiration directly in our pockets.

For those with an interest in art, mobile devices and computers can serve as both a gallery and a studio. A variety of applications are available that either display curated artworks on your screen or provide sophisticated tools for creating your own.

This overview presents options across both categories, from those designed for appreciation to those built for creation.

Why Art Apps Matter

The proliferation of art-focused mobile applications reflects broader shifts in how audiences consume cultural content. According to GSMA’s 2024 report, over half the global population now accesses the internet primarily via smartphones. This democratisation of access means that individuals living outside major cultural centres—places where galleries and exhibitions remain geographically or financially inaccessible—can still engage meaningfully with art history, contemporary movements, and emerging artists.

Art apps serve distinct purposes: some function as educational tools, delivering bite-sized art history lessons; others act as discovery platforms, connecting users to nearby exhibitions and gallery openings; still others provide aesthetic experiences, transforming devices into rotating digital galleries. The key is identifying which type aligns with your interests and habits.

Artpaper: Museum-Quality Wallpapers for Your Devices

For those who value daily aesthetic experiences without requiring active engagement, Artpaper offers an elegant solution. This application automatically updates your desktop or mobile background with high-resolution scans of paintings from prestigious museums and galleries worldwide.

What Artpaper Offers

Artpaper’s core proposition centres on effortless beauty. The app offers over 1,300 art wallpapers in 5K Retina quality, designed specifically for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Unlike generic wallpaper apps that rely on user-uploaded photography or AI-generated imagery, Artpaper curates copyright-free scanned paintings exclusively from established cultural institutions. This approach ensures both visual quality and historical authenticity.

The application supports automatic wallpaper rotation on schedules that suit different preferences, including daily, weekly, fortnightly, and monthly intervals. Users can also trigger changes manually when shutting down their computer. For those working with multiple displays, Artpaper supports up to 7 displays and sets unique wallpapers on each.

The app organises its collection into seven distinct packs, allowing users to download only the categories that appeal to them. Each wallpaper includes basic contextual information—the painting’s title, artist, and origin—accessible within the app window.

Core Features and Content:

• Extensive Library: The app provides access to over 1,300 hand-picked artworks sourced from major international galleries and museums.
• Automatic Rotation: You can set the wallpaper to refresh automatically at chosen intervals—such as hourly, daily, or weekly—ensuring a regularly changing display.
• Artwork Information: Each wallpaper includes details such as the work’s title, creator, and year of creation, providing contextual information.

Who Benefits Most from Artpaper

Artpaper suits individuals who want consistent exposure to fine art without the commitment required by more interactive apps. It functions passively, requiring no daily interaction beyond occasional browsing through the catalogue. This makes it ideal for professionals who work long hours at desks and wish to surround themselves with beauty, or for anyone who finds inspiration in encountering unexpected artworks throughout the day.

DailyArt: A Daily Dose of Art History

Whilst Artpaper delivers passive aesthetic experiences, DailyArt takes an educational approach. Since its launch in 2012 by art historian Zuzanna Stanska, the app has provided daily push notifications featuring a single artwork alongside a short historical narrative.

Features and Content

DailyArt’s database includes over 4,000 artworks, 1,200 artist biographies, and information about 600 museums. The app’s search functionality allows users to explore by artist, movement, or period, whilst its widget feature displays artwork directly on mobile home screens without requiring users to open the app.

One particularly valuable aspect of DailyArt is its high-resolution imagery. Users can zoom into paintings to examine brushwork and details that would otherwise require standing directly in front of the original canvas. This level of detail surpasses what typical web searches provide, making the app useful for both casual appreciation and more serious study.

Smartify: Your Pocket Museum Guide

Smartify functions as a “Shazam for art,” using image recognition technology to identify paintings and sculptures when users point their phone camera at them. The app transforms museum visits by providing instant access to contextual information, audio tours, and artist backgrounds.

Core Functionality

When scanning an artwork, Smartify retrieves details such as the piece's title, artist, creation date, medium, and historical context. The app includes audio tours and video content created by museum curators, offering deeper engagement than traditional wall labels.

Beyond identification, Smartify helps users plan visits by providing museum maps, ticketing information, and alerts about must-see exhibitions. The app also functions as a digital collecting tool—users can save scanned artworks to their personal collection, building a record of pieces they’ve encountered.

Smartify partners with hundreds of museums, galleries, and historic sites worldwide.

Use Cases Beyond Museums

Whilst designed primarily for museum use, Smartify’s recognition technology works with any artwork in its database, making it useful for identifying pieces in cafes, public spaces, or galleries without comprehensive labelling.

Applications for Creating Digital Art

For creating original artwork, several applications are considered standard choices, particularly when used with a stylus like the Apple Pencil on an iPad.

Professional and Versatile Tools

These applications offer comprehensive feature sets suitable for serious hobbyists and professionals.

Streamlined and Accessible Options

For sketching, drafting ideas, or a simpler creative process, more focused applications are available.

Tayasui Sketches: Known for a clean, minimal interface and tactile, responsive brushes that emulate pencils, inks, and watercolours.

Sketchbook: Offers a professional-grade set of customisable brushes and tools in a distraction-free interface. A free version is available with optional premium features.

Other Notable Software

For users working primarily on desktop or laptop computers, other powerful software is central to many digital art workflows.

Adobe Photoshop: Widely regarded as the industry standard for digital art and image editing, offering an extensive toolkit for painting, compositing, and photo manipulation. It is available by subscription.

Clip Studio Paint: A favourite among comic and manga artists for its specialised storytelling and paneling tools.

Rebelle: Excels at creating highly realistic simulations of watercolour and paint behaviour on desktop platforms

Final Thoughts

The available applications cater to different aspects of engaging with art. Options like Artpaper focus on display and discovery, turning a personal device into a source of daily inspiration. For original creation, the choice varies from professional, full-featured studios like Procreate to simpler, accessible sketching tools. The most suitable application depends on whether the goal is appreciation, creation, or a combination of both.