To Alter, or Not to Alter?

[fmaz]

That could be signed by Bieber for all I care, that's a beauty! :-)

[Koa]

Signatures mean nothing in authenticating original art, it can be helpful but having it or not doesn't really matter. in fact the wrong signature can effect how a piece is sold. This happened with Thor #180 by John Buscema pencils (Marie Severin did the background figures) and Joe Sinnott inks. At one point someone asked Neal Adams who drew the interiors to signed the original cover which he did. Even though Neal never contributed to the cover either pencil or inks.

After it changed hands a original art dealer sold the cover as penciled by Neal Adams and inks by Joe Sinnott. The cover even looked like Neal's art but some thought it was pencils by Neal not John Buscema the true penciler. Had to ask the inker Joe Sinnott who confirmed John penciled the cover with background figures by Marie.

So a signature can sometimes be bad for a piece of art.

 

I've seen a few things like that. A cover attributed to Frank Miller that wasn't by him. Artists should never sign art they had no part in.

 

[kav]

 

well removing the 'for sam with best wishes' from a schulz sketch could mean the difference between it being determined to be real and 'possible forgery'.

that handwriting it part of the provenance and thus adds value.

not to mention when people see erasure marks red flags start shooting up like crazy.

I would never buy an original pencil drawing with any kind of erasure marks.

 

hmm.. in my opinion, if an expert thinks a page ifs fake only because the personalization was erased, then the expert is not much of an expert.

 

as well, there is a reason why artists work in pencil, so they can erase! I think a good portion of "authentic" original pencil pieces have some sort of erasing done by the artist.

 

Malvin

some legitimate schulz have been deemed fake. in this biz the more times the artist wrote something the better chance to compare handwriting. you seem to think that experts are 100%-this is not true. they can be very sure but certainty of an unpublished piece is impossible, unless it was witnessed publicly and/or verified by a photo with artist. handwriting is harder to fake than art for art forger. thats why it has an added importance, and should not be erased. as far as the thor example-an extreme anomaly does not create a general rule.

the way authentication works is the expert gives an opinion. the more handwriting he has to examine the better chance for an 'almost certainly legit' vs 'possibly legit'. traced signatures are very very easy to spot. same with traced handwriting. traced artwork, not so much. I have seen Kirby reproductions that look exactly like kirby. only the signature/inscription was a give away

[fmaz]

Just to put a cap on the story... here's the end result, back from the framer, unaltered and behind glass:

 

[Dick Pontoon]

Looks great!