the gallery that wanted me to change my signature
I had a gallery once, small, but established, who asked if I could sign my paintings smaller or on the back only. "Distracting," they said. My signature is a brushstroke, not a monogram. I said no, and it didn't go further.
But I still wonder. The gallerist who decorates your work with their taste before anyone's seen it. Where do you draw the line? What's negotiation and what's them treating you like hired help?
I'll start: asking me to change how I sign feels like asking me to change how I breathe. But maybe I'm stubborn. What's yours?
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This is a very good point you are making ji. In Mithila painting, the way we sign is also a kind of tradition, some of our older artists never even signed, it was not the practice, the work was known by the family. But now times have changed and we sign.
To ask you to put it on the back, or make it smaller, this is not a small thing. The signature is your mark, it says this is my hand, my eye, my patience. If they find it distracting before the work is even hung, what else will they find distracting? Your colours? Your subject? This is the start only.
I think you were right to say no. A gallery should show your work, not edit your identity. 🙏
Mithila painting, I know it a little, the linework and the way the colour sits flat, very different to what I do. But you're right that the signature question is the same regardless of tradition. It's your hand declaring itself.
The comment about what else they'll find distracting, that's exactly it. Once they start editing the artist, where does it stop? A gallerist should want the work to be itself, not a cleaned-up version of itself.
Thank you for sharing that about your tradition. I didn't know that about the older Mithila artists not signing. There's something beautiful in that too, the work being known by the family, the lineage.