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Can you guess whose signature this is? The answer is at the bottom of this email.

Artist Signatures - Part 1 DOES A PICTURE HAVE TO BE SIGNED? BY FRANKLIN HILL PERRELL

Have you ever heard anyone make this observation and question: “I don’t see a signature on this painting. Why didn’t the artist sign their work?” Admittedly, I hear this less than I used to. Perhaps, as we gain distance in time from the era of traditional painting, and especially since we encounter installations and various other art manifestations that would defy any attempt to sign them in the usual sense, we have come to not expect it. And wouldn’t certain abstract paintings be spoiled by the intrusion of a signature? Photo: Franklin Hill Perrell painting outdoors. How does he sign his work?

There was a time in history when a painting in the art market would be regarded as elevated in value or merit because of a signature. Art dealers were at times suspected of adding signatures to works that didn’t have any. However, that viewpoint is a dated one. Actually, in the realm of art forgeries the very easiest thing to falsify is a signature. It is much more difficult to concoct an entire painting! And it doesn’t take into consideration two key points. In the renaissance, few if any paintings were signed, and many are not today.   Photo Collage: H.A. van Meegeren was a Dutch painter and portraitist, considered to be one of the most ingenious art forgers of the 20th century. The two lower signatures are fake.

Signing begins to happen increasingly during the eighteenth century, and becomes a real point in the neo-classical era with the emergence of powerful art celebrities like Jacques-Louis David. We see his bold signature on occasions in lettering “J.L. DAVID” that looks like an inscription on a Roman monument. This is the beginning era of art merchandising in the modern sense. Signatures become really important for the likes of Delacroix, Courbet, Manet, and Monet. These figures were all art entrepeneurs, publicity hounds, who recognized that having a powerful brand was a key to financial success. Their signature became a type of branded logo.

Portrait photograph of the French impressionist painter  Claude Monet  by  Nadar ; Monet's signature.

There is a widely circulated notion that certain artists, Picasso, for example, would sign their work only upon the consummation of its sale.. A great contradiction to this is Van Gogh, who painted nearly a thousand paintings, sold more or less nothing, and signed almost everything. Van Gogh’s signature, often in lively calligraphy, is typically brightly colored and fits so harmoniously into the composition that it truly becomes integral to the painting. That is an artist signature at its best. It should blend in, not call attention to itself as a distraction, and above all, it should not become an element that might diminish the purity of the overall aesthetic intent. That issue leads to the attitudes of the twentieth century, where the rise in prominence of abstract art particularly impacted the practice of signatures. Vincent van Gogh, Still Life: Vase with Fourteen Sunflowers, 1888, oil on canvas, National Gallery, PD and detail with Van Gogh's signature in the middle on the vase.

Want more? Andy Warhol often incorporated his handwriting in his illustrations, including this business card (and sometimes it wasn't even his own - it was his mother penning it!)

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Answer: This signature belongs to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec!