• << Back to Articles for Artists

Sign Your Art

So People Can Read It

and Other Helpful Tips

Artist Signature Identification from Artbusiness.com >>

Signing your art is an integral part of the creative process. The instant you apply your name to a piece of your art, you declare it to be officially done and ready to go public. No matter what your signature looks like, what form it takes or where you put it, no work of your art is complete without one.

Your signature identifies your art for all time as having been created, completed, and approved of by you and you alone (with the exception of collaborative works, of course). When someone wants to know who created your art, your signature tells them. When someone sees your art for the first time and wants to know who the artist is so they can see more or learn more, your signature helps them find you. When you're not around to identify your art (and sooner or later you won't be), your signature identifies it for you.

Unfortunately, far too many artists treat signing their art as little more than an afterthought or inconsequential act, like signing a check or a credit card receipt, like putting your name on it hardly even matters. But underestimating the importance of your signature and the moment of signing can lead to all sorts of problems later on in a work of art's life. This is especially true the better known or more famous you eventually become.

The most serious signature problem? Not signing your art at all. Believe it or not, a significant number of artists these days don't even bother to sign their art. Why? Maybe they think their work is so identifiable that everyone will automatically know who did it. Maybe they think everyone already knows who they are and what their art looks like. Maybe they think everyone will continue to know these things for all eternity. Well guess what? Maybe they're wrong. So rule number one-- and by far the most important rule-- sign your art. Period.

The second most serious signature problem? Names signed so illegibly that the only people who can identify them are those who already know the artist and know what the artist's art and signature look like (they can't actually read the signatures in most cases; they just know how they look). Anyone outside the immediate inner circle who knows little or nothing about the artist is pretty much screwed.

Artists sign their names illegibly for a variety of reasons, similar to the reasons of artist's who don't sign their art at all. Some think unreadable signatures look good, some do it to impress people, others think their work will always be identifiable as theirs whether or not anyone can read or recognize their names or not. Still others feel that an unreadable signature has a mystique or caché about it, an "only special people can read it" quality. Maybe, like some of the artists who don't sign at all, they they believe their work is universally recognizable and no one will ever forget who they are or ever question who made their art. The truth about that? Nothing is further from the truth.

To summarize, rule number one is to always sign your art. It can be on the back, the bottom, the sides, the edges-- anywhere as long as it's there. And rule number two is to sign your name clearly enough so that anyone can read it. To repeat: Sign your name so anyone can read it. If you like signing illegibly on the front, that's fine as long as you make sure you clearly sign or otherwise label or identify yourself as the artist somewhere else on the art.

Sadly, so many artist signatures on all kinds of art, dating from all time periods, are so difficult or impossible to read that they've become a significant problem in the business, and trying to identify them, an industry in itself. There are even websites and databases dedicated solely to artist signatures like John Castagno's https://artistssignatures.com containing over 100,000 signature examples by 65,000 artists. But as good as that database is, it's far from comprehensive. FYI, I actually offer a service where I charge a fee to identify indecipherable signatures (and only charge if I make positive identification, which sometimes I can, but many times I can't).

How does art lose its identity even though people almost always know who the artists are when they buy? To begin with, people buy art all the time purely for their own enjoyment, and never tell anyone who the artists are. During the life of the art, many art owners either lose or misplace their receipts or documentation, or just throw them out. People buy art all the time and forget who the artists are. People sell, donate, trade, transfer or otherwise give away art all the time without ever informing the new owners who the artists are-- like when they move or downsize their residences, redecorate, have yard sales, or when they just plain get tired of looking at it. Art can also lose its identity when it changes hands through death, divorce, inheritance, as gifts, and so on.

Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Let's say someone buys a piece of art with an illegible signature for a hundred bucks at an artist's first show just because she likes it and can afford it (the artist, of course, is totally unknown at the time). The buyer doesn't really follow the career of the artist and some years later because she's moving or her tastes have changed or whatever, she gives the art to an acquaintance who happens to like the way it looks. The new owner doesn't ask who it's by, doesn't really care, and the original owner doesn't bother mentioning who did it (assuming she even remembers) because after all, she got it cheap and it was no big deal at the time. The artist was a nobody. Meanwhile, let's say the artist has now become relatively famous, and that piece of art is now worth $50,000. Are you beginning to get the picture? Believe it or not, things like this happens a lot more often than you might think.

If artists had any idea of the fates that befall unsigned works of art art or those with signatures that can't be identified, a lot more artists would sign their art clearly and legibly. It's not like people don't try to figure out who made unsigned or illegibly signed art. They try to decipher the names by looking at them. They search randomly online, ask artists or gallery owners or other art professionals if they recognize the art or the names, try to locate similar looking artworks online, or even hire someone who offers identification services to decipher them (like me; I signature ID requests all the time).

Whenever a work of art ends up in circumstances like this where nobody knows, remembers or can identify the artist, and nobody really likes or cares all that much about it (forget about how good it may be or how famous the artist is), it ends up at flea markets, garage sales, auctions, the Salvation Army, Joe's Maison de Junk, in the garbage, in the fireplace, garages, attics, gathering mold in basements or outbuildings, getting crammed into storage lockers, protecting barbeque grills from the rain, or becoming toys for little Billy-- you name it.

Do you want to jeopardize your art's future simply because you don't want to sign it or you like signing in ways that are difficult to read? I doubt it. And don't think that just because you're known in certain circles or even nationally or internationally for that matter that your art is safe forever. Not even art by the most famous artists in the world is identifiable by everyone. Wayward works of art by famous artists are rediscovered all the time, and do you know the main reason why? Because luck has it that someone somewhere with adequate knowledge of what they're looking at can identify either the styles or the signatures and rescue them. Sadly, luck does not always come to the rescue. In fact, it often doesn't. In all those cases where no guardian angel or knowledgeable savior comes along in time, that art is off to oblivion. The moral of the story? Sign your art clearly or risk the consequences.

Additional tips and pointers for signing your art:

* Art by artists who sign with initials, monograms, and symbols often meets fates similar to illegibly signed art. Here again no matter how in love you are with a cryptic or mysterious way of signing, clearly sign or otherwise identify yourself elsewhere on the art.

* Sign your art in the same medium in which you create it (except for graphics or limited edition prints or photographs, which are generally signed in pencil or ink). For example, sign a watercolor in watercolor, an acrylic in acrylic, and an oil painting in oil paint. When you sign in a different medium, you increase the chances that someone will eventually question whether or not the art was actually done by you, or even signed by you. These days, being able to conclusively determine whether works of art are genuine and authentic is more important than ever. So do what you can to make that job as easy as possible.

* Placing your signature or monogram into the compositions of graphics, digital prints, or limited editions in addition to signing them by hand provides an extra means of identification and can also "brand" your work or even protect it against people who may try to forge or copy it. FYI, art forgery is a bigger problem than ever and forgers don't only forge signatures of famous artists; they forge signatures by all kinds of artists in all mediums and price ranges all the time.

* Sign all of your art in basically the same way. Signatures should be consistent in size, coloration, location, style (whether written or printed, for instance), and other particulars. That way, people who aren't necessarily familiar with all the styles of art you've produced over your career will at least be able to recognize your standardized way of signing, and therefore identify it as being by you. The problem with not standardizing but instead signing your name in many different styles or locations during the course of your career is that you ultimately make your art harder to identify, and easier for forgers to sign fakes however they want and claim they're by you. Standardizing your signature makes it easier for authenticators and experts to conclusively determine your art is by you.

* Date your art. You may not think this is important now, but after you've been making art for several decades or longer, you'll understand why. If you don't want to date your art on the front, date it inconspicuously on the back-- or even on the edge. Obviously, dating your art minimizes any guesswork as to when something was completed. Also, the better known you become, the more important dates are for anyone interested in your evolution as an artist... and that includes the curators who will one day be organizing your retrospectives.

* Provide additional hand-written or hand-applied information somewhere on the art. This may include a title, an inventory number, a comment, a location where the art was made, and so on. If you do this consistently, not only does it make your art easier for experts to identify, but it also makes it more difficult for forgers to forge.

* If you make works on paper, you may want to use an embossing stamp, insignia, your fingerprint, or a digital identifier in addition to hand-signing it, thereby making the act of completion more formal and official. Art with your signature and a stamp or a fingerprint or some other identifying feature is also more difficult to replicate, fake, or copy.

* Sign your art as soon as its done, preferably while the paint or clay or whatever medium it's in is still wet or pliable. Collectors prefer signatures that are "embedded" into the art because those types of signatures are the most difficult to forge or duplicate. Furthermore, the sooner you sign completed works, the more you're in the "zone" in which you created the art, and the more unified and harmonious the signature is with rest of the composition. The longer you wait to sign, the less the signature tends to match the overall tone or feel of the piece. At worst, signatures applied well after the fact can actually detract from the overall appearance of the art.

* Don't sign on top of a varnished painting or completed sculpture because the signature will look like it was added later or more as an afterthought than a declaration. Signatures like that are more prone to being questioned.

* Your signature should not be so bold or overbearing that it actually interferes with or detracts from the composition (unless you purposefully intend for that to be a defining characteristic of your art). It should blend rather than contrast or conflict with its surroundings and look like it belongs or "lives" within the art.

* Don't scratch your signature into dried paint, ceramic, or similar media unless this is how you normally sign. Scratched signatures rarely blend with their art and their authenticity can also be easily questioned.

***

No matter how diligent you may be about keeping track of your work, you're not always going to know where every piece of your art is or where its journey will end. And you certainly won't be around for all eternity to vouch for it. Those who buy your art today will not necessarily own it tomorrow (or even remember that you were the artist). Regardless of where your art ends up or who eventually owns it, make sure it always will be treated with the care and respect it deserves, and never relegated to "I don't know" or "I have no idea" or "I can't remember" categories, and end up in the "Let's get rid of it" pile. By taking the signing your art seriously today, you maximize the chances that people will be able to identify, appreciate, cherish, enjoy, and remember you through your life's work for countless generations to come.

(photography by Carlos and Jason Sanchez)