Sign Your Art so People Can Read it (and Other Tips)

Signing your art is an important part of the creative process. The moment you apply your name to a piece of your art, you declare that art finished and ready to be shown. No matter what your signature looks like, what form it takes or where you put it, no work of your art is complete without it.

Your signature identifies your art for all time as having been created, approved of, and completed by you and you alone (with the exception of collaborative efforts). 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 see 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.

Far too many artists treat signing their art as an afterthought, a formality, like signing a check or a credit card receipt. But dismissing the importance of the signature and the moment of signing can lead to all sorts of problems later in a work of art's life. This is especially true the more famous an artist eventually becomes.

The most serious signature problem arises when the only people who can read an artist's name are those who know the artist, and know what the artist's art and signature look like. So rule number one, by far the most important rule, is sign your name so that people can read it. To repeat: Sign your name so that people can read it. You don't necessarily have to sign your name legibly on the front of the art, but make sure you clearly sign or otherwise label it somewhere, anywhere, as long as it's on or attached to the art.

Artists sign their names illegibly for a variety of reasons. Some think it looks good, others think they'll always be identifiable as the artists whether or not anyone can read their names; still others feel that an unreadable signature has a mystique, an "only special people can read it" quality. A few artists don't even sign their art, believing that it stands on its own as being by them. Perhaps these artists believe that no one will ever question who made their art, but nothing is further from the truth.

Anybody care to take a guess?

To begin with, so many artist signatures (of all time periods) are difficult or impossible to read that they've become a significant problem in the marketplace. John Castagno's book, Artists' Monograms and Indiscernible Signatures, An International Directory, 1800-1991, contains over 5,000 such examples, and it's not even close to being comprehensive. If artists had any idea what happens to art with signatures that can't be identified using Castagno's book or other means, a lot fewer signatures would be unreadable.

How does art lose its identity? You as an artist should know that people buy art all the time and never tell anyone who that art is by. People buy art all the time and forget who the artists are. People get rid of art all the time, without saying who the artists are, when they downsize, move, re-do their interiors, or when they just plain get tired of looking at it. Art also loses its identity when it changes hands through death, divorce, inheritance, barter, as gifts, and so on.

Whenever a work of art ends up in circumstances where nobody knows, remembers, or can identify who did it, and nobody really likes or cares about it (forget about how good it is from a critical standpoint or how famous the artist is), it ends up at flea markets, garage sales, auctions, the Salvation Army, Joe's House of Junk, in the garbage, garages, attics, gathering mold in basements or outbuildings, getting crushed in storage lockers, protecting barbeque grills from the rain, becoming toys for little Billy, you name it.

Do you want to jeopardize your art's future because people have trouble reading your signature? Probably not. And don't think that just because you're known in certain circles, even internationally, that your art is safe forever. Not even art by the most famous artists in the world is identifiable by everyone. Lost works of art by famous artists are rediscovered all the time, and do you know the main reason why? Because people can read the signatures. The moral of the story is that you can sign your name as inscrutably as you want and wherever you want as long as you also clearly identify yourself as the artist elsewhere on the art.

Additional pointers for signing your art:

* Art by artists who sign with initials, monograms, and symbols often meets similar fates to illegibly signed art. Here again, clearly sign or otherwise identify yourself elsewhere on the art.

* Make and sign your art in the same medium (except for graphics, which are generally signed in pencil). 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 of someone eventually questioning whether or not the art was actually done by you.

* Placing your signature or monogram into the compositions of graphics in addition to signing them by hand provides additional means of identification and can even "trademark" your work.

* Always put the edition size on limited edition graphics.

* Sign all of your art in more or less the same way. Signatures should be consistent in size, coloration, location, style (written or printed), and other particulars. That way, people who don't know your art will have an easier time recognizing your work. Also, signing your name in many different ways or locations eventually makes it easier for forgers to sign art in various ways and claim that it's by you.

* Date your art. You may not think this is important now, but after you've been making art for several decades, you'll understand why. Briefly, dating your art minimizes any guesswork as to when something was completed. If you don't want to date your art on the front, date it inconspicuously on the back. The better known you become, the more important dates are for anyone interested in your evolution as an artist.

* If you make works on paper, you may want to use an embossing stamp in addition to your signature to make the act of completion more formal and official. Art with your signature and a stamp is also more difficult to duplicate or copy.

* Sign your art as soon as its done, even while the paint or clay is still wet or soft. Collectors prefer signatures that are "embedded" in the art because those types of signatures are the most difficult to forge or duplicate. The closer you sign to the moment of completion, the more you're in the "zone" in which you created the art, and the more unified the signature is with the art. The longer you wait to sign, the less the signature tends to match the overall tone or emotional impact of the piece.

* Don't sign on top of a varnished painting or glazed sculpture because the signature then looks like it was added later, more as an afterthought than a declaration.

* Your signature should not be so bold or obvious that it interferes with or detracts from the composition. It should blend rather than contrast with its surroundings and look like it belongs in the art.

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

Remember, you're not always going to know where every piece of your art is or where it's journeys will end. Those who buy your art today will not necessarily own it tomorrow. Regardless of where your art ends up or who eventually owns it, make sure that it will be handled with care and never relegated to the "I don't know" pile. Treat your signature with respect and maximize the chances that people will know and remember you through your art for all time.