Commended as foremost of paintings put up (7)
I believe the answer is:
praised
'commended' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'foremost of paintings put up' is the wordplay.
'foremost of paintings' becomes 'p' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'put' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'up' becomes 'raised' ('raised' can be similar in meaning to 'up').
'p'+'raised'='PRAISED'
'as' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for praised that I've seen before include "Despair (anag.)" , "Spoke well of" , "Lauded, extolled" , "well-received" , "Exalted" .)