Do you date your paintings?
David's Kitchen Paintings - with dates!
Last week a got an email from a local frame shop. A buyer had dropped off 6 of my daily paintings of fruits and vegetables for framing and asked if I'd put dates on the paintings near my signature.
Of course! So I matched paint and put dates on 4 of them. 2 needed new varnish (lint!) so I scrubbed off the retouch varnish and then put dates on. One had a couple of funny yellow spots on the white background that weren't in the varnish layer so I painted over those and hope they don't return. I'll put a thin layer of Gamvar on all of them since they are finally, mostly, nearly done drying.
I'd recently had a conversation with the collector about dates because he owns a lot of amazing art and really enjoys seeing the dates on the paintings. It helps place them in context: of the time, of the artist's career and of the buyers life.
He had a point. A very good point. In museums I notice if a painting is dated and I use that date to track the development and see the evolution of style. Since our conversation I've been painting my signature - L McShane - AND the year.
But I'm curious: do you put dates on the front of your paintings?
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