Signing Your Art...What Does It Mean?

The following article was written by Robert Genn, a Canadian painter of International repute who runs an art listing site called The Painter Keys..I have permission to reproduce his writings here..

Yesterday Chris Bingle of Stroud in Gloucestershire, UK, asked about signing paintings. She recently turned down the purchase of one because the artist had signed her name “quite high on the lower left in a thick, black stylized script. It jolted the eye and brain,” she said. “I knew it would bother me.”

Chris signs her own work “in a colour a few degrees darker than the background.” Simple and understated is Chris’s thinking. I agree. I like my name to be neat, legible and not too intrusive. It’s a personal preference, but I’m here to tell you there’s more to a signature than meets the eye. Like paintings themselves, they carry a meta-message about the artist.

Think of the range of signatures you know. They may give impressions of strength, weakness, haste, ignorance, naivety, stiffness, contrivance, carelessness, obscurity, egocentricity, humility, commercialism, etc. Just as handwriting experts speculate on the nature of the writer, viewers pick up information from a few innocuous letters and flourishes. Some artists, consciously or unconsciously, bring their signature into harmony with their work. If you look around, you’ll also see signature styles that are in contrast to the style of the work. Concerned with the toil of their personal process, they may sign cursorily to convey the impression of bravura. Painters with bravura, on the other hand, may sign neatly to magnify the contrast. I’ve noticed that the size of my signature fluctuates with the size of my current feelings of prowess. Signatures are a window to the machinations of personality.

Mysterious, cryptic and illegible signatures aside, many artists simply want to be known as fellow humans—folks with consistent first and last names and sometimes an initial or two. These days, whether a mouthful or a singular moniker, your name needs to be somewhat distinct for Internet purposes. Singular can be problematic. “Vincent,” for example, has been taken. In my case, I like them to know my first name as well as my last. When strangers call me “Robert,” I know they know my work. Everybody else calls me “Bob.” But then again, you are you, and your signature is part of your entity. It’s your life. Sign your life as you would live it.

“Prince, you are you by accident of birth; what I am, I am of myself. There are and there will be thousands of princes. There is only one Beethoven.” (Ludwig van Beethoven)

Chris also wanted to know about the current fashion of not signing work at all. Or if at all—on the edge or the back. People look at these works with puzzlement and ask, “Who is this person who is unable to identify himself?” Actually, some artists feel good about doing this. It seems to me that front-signing is a simple, time-honoured convention worth caving in to. I like the company. Bending down with a small sable, I figure if Titian, Turner, Tissot and Toulouse-Lautrec did it, it’s gotta be okay.

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Below are some samples of the responses from various readers to the above article..I have omitted names and just extracted the gist of each comment..Janis

“I decided initials (in front) were just fine, simple and obviously less complicated”.

“I have always felt that the signature should blend with and be part of the artwork”.

“My Art School instructors encouraged their students to sign the works in a manner to add to the composition. Later, as an independent easel painter, I signed my paintings and drawings with initials in a flared script to fit the expression of the work”.

“Some people just stink at lettering so the signature becomes larger than they intended. I started signing my work with colored pencil for just that reason. It works. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it. I had been hiding minute secret messages… actually the names of my spouse and children in every painting for quite sometime”.

“Having worked for several years for an art appraiser and conservator, let me warn not to rely solely on signing on the back of the canvas or the stretcher bars! Supports can change, a canvas might need re-lining or the stretcher bars become damaged and need replacing”.

“My work tends to be clean and minimalist. A signature often interferes with design and composition. Back-signing has been the best alternative. There’s another practical reason to not sign the front: Giclees. Giclees are numbered in series, often on the back of the piece. Typically, it is undesirable for a signature to appear as part of the reproduction. A signature can be Photoshopped out, but it’s time consuming and, no matter how skilled a person is, sometimes the alteration is going to be obvious”.

“Ideally, it would be nice to exhibit artworks without artist signatures on them so that each art piece could speak for itself and be judged, appreciated on its merit or weaknesses. Many times I’ve noticed viewers check the signatures first before they give the artwork a serious thought while others cross-check the price list first as some guide to its ‘value.’ It’s common practice among artists to sign an art piece when they so decide that the particular artwork is ‘done’ and the artist has nothing more substantial to add. It is my belief that my paintings are only “mine” while I work on them and cease to be “my artwork” the moment I sign my name; once signed, a painting is for the world to enjoy and the viewing public “owns” it. The artwork then takes a life of its own, and the artist lives forever as the art piece continues to touch and move the next generation of art lovers”.

“Isn’t it also a good idea to always sign your painting using the same media you used to create the work, i.e. pastel, oil, acrylic, watercolor paints? I have many students who want to sign with a felt pen because they feel their signature is written better than using a brush. I have been discouraging this technique and urge them to practice signature using brush, pastel pencil, etc and practicing signature. Also I personally dislike seeing signatures that are scrawled at an angle up through the painting. I feel the signature should be level with the bottom of the work”.

“If you are in commercial galleries—particularly if you are moving works around between them—it’s a good idea to leave the date out. That way there’s no stale buns. I make date and other info available to collectors who write and ask after the fact”.

“I now put my copyright and full name and date on the back of the painting”.

“I always sign the back of my paintings. Try as I have, signing the front competes with the image and becomes a focal point”.

“I sign on the back as well with any pertinent information as to the subject. I often leave a fingerprint by my signature on the front and embed a hair sample for the DNA.”...

__________

I do the the fingerprint as well…I sign the back of all works with my name, the date and a fingerprint, but rarely sign the front, as I find it often conflicts with the image and can be very distracting…I have also embedded the fingerprint in the painting where it’s not easily discernible…this can deter fraudsters from claiming the work as theirs.
How do you sign your work and have you decided to change anything about the way you sign after reading this article...Janis

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