In 2011, I visited a Julien Hudson art retrospective (1811-1844) at the Worcester Art Museum. There I learned that his paintings were often difficult to identify because, after the calcification of anti-black laws in Louisiana in the 19th century, he and other Creole artists were increasingly marginalized. It also meant that Hudson’s signature was erased from some works and often replaced with the signatures of white artists. I remember this specific case because I had encountered the stories of other minoritized artists who had suffered similar fates during periods of persecution. This raised a larger question that I continue to reflect on, namely, “What is the value of artist signatures and why are they important? »
The obvious answer is provenance and money, but the value of a signature comes down to more than that. A good example is the curious story of Joseph Kyselak (1798-1831). At the start of the 19th century, Kyselak was an Austrian civil servant and mountaineer who was known to “tag” his name in certain important places during his treks in Central Europe and elsewhere, even climbing Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador and leaving his nickname there. Although he’s not an artist, his story gives us insight into why people might feel the need to leave their names behind, even when they’re not affixed to artwork. We see similar things with the more recent history of graffiti, which emerged at a time when corporate billboards filled city walls and streets, later emulated by young marginalized graffiti artists who did not see their world represented on the same billboards and wanted to see their own names on the walls of their neighborhoods.
In this special edition, I asked a number of writers to investigate what the signatures of artists and craftsmen actually mean or represent, and the results are a fascinating mix of contemporary and ancient stories that reveal the multifaceted history of this curious phenomenon.
The biggest surprise is an essay by David Low, a British-American art historian whom I met in 2016 while curating an exhibition at Minerva Projects, then headquartered in Denver, Colorado. At the time, I was fascinated by Low’s research into the great absences in the Ottoman archives on the subject of individual photographers and their work. This was particularly curious because of the area’s importance in an empire that helped create the travel and tourism photography genres by selling images to mainly European travelers who visited the area due to a religious pilgrimage, a change of scenery or in search of orientalist titillation. I pointed out at the time that Karlen Mooradian, the nephew of Vosdanig Adoian (later Arshile Gorky), had mentioned in a book that the photographer of the image which became the basis of Gorky’s famous film The artist and his mother series was Armenian. With this friendly help, Low was able to continue his research and discover the identity of the photographer, which I think is an incredible contribution to the history of 20th century American art. This question begs the question of why the names of some artists are kept for history, while others are largely lost and their significance dismissed or undervalued. From there, a larger conversation about the identity, value, and historical narratives of art comes into play, which I hope you will keep in mind as you read the edition.
Sarah Bond, for her contribution, writes about the signatures of craftsmen in the ancient world, and how they represented the pride of the creator, as much as they denoted a type of mastery.
In Rome, Anthony Majanlahti considers the only signed work by Michelangelo and how, in the Renaissance, artists used their name to differentiate themselves from more common craftsmen.
In Detroit, Sarah Rose Sharp visits the city’s Scarab Club, which was accumulate famous artist signatures, writers and performers for over a century. Notable names bearing the beams and walls of the club include Marcel Duchamp, Diego Rivera, Isamu Noguchi and Margaret Bourke-White.
I also invited Anoushka Bhalla to talk to various contemporary artists about how and why they choose whether or not to sign their works. All of the artists she spoke with are female or non-binary and raised some interesting questions around gendered perceptions of value and signatures.
First-time contributor Eileen Skyers explores what a the signature is in the age of the internet when digital artists sell works that do not lend themselves to the traditional notion of an artist signature.
And finally, journalist Elaine Velie visits a curious sidewalk on Manhattan’s Upper East Side who listed the names of well-known female artists. It’s a fun story that shows how people continue to be captivated by the power of the artist’s signed name.
I hope this edition will encourage people to reflect on what some of us take for granted or largely overlook. I hope you have as much fun reading it as we had writing it.
