Is the idea of artistic legacy merely vanity on the part of the artist or a societal need to position artists in the greater narrative? Probably both, although the needs of the market more than likely outweigh both. A signature proves that you were the one who created the work and will almost always increase that painting’s monetary worth and while there are a handful of artists who will tell you that signing your work is overrated and unnecessary, provenance is key to not only being remembered but guaranteeing worth as the work progresses down the investment chain. All of which presumes that making money is the prime objective of artist while they are alive and the fortunes of others once they are dead. A poet acquaintance of mine donated all of his papers to the state library and no doubt imagined earnest scholars raking though the archives and finding his life and work fascinating. Poets don’t take up much physical room [the mythical slim volume]while artists tend to sign and date everything no matter how much space it takes up as they shape their legacy to the world.

One thing is true, quality alone does not guarantee a legacy any more than does a life of singular debauchery that may titillate the airport novel seeker. Some artists live on as a one-line synopsis while others have their position established in the greater narrative via relatives. Vincent may have slipped through the cracks but for the efforts of his sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger to promote his work after his death and publishers who saw a profit in a salacious story of self-mutilation. In the hierarchy of art sales, today Monet rose above Picasso and Warhol although both of the latter have their turns. Should a Monet Haystack come onto the market the clamour would amount to a cacophony.

Over time I have read a lot of artist biographies and waded through autobiographies and blogs as artists sought to explain their ideas and approaches. In some cases there is an extensive history of letter writing as with van Gogh and in others narry a word was written in a lifetime. Critical writing on seminal artists is just as extensive with every aspect of an artist’s work being considered while attempts to group together artists under a ‘movement’ banner are legion. However, the concept of a movement is confined these days to community art and even more short lived than those of the twentieth century. Ars longa, vita brevis [Art is lasting, life is short ] is undoubtedly true but equally true is that a lifetime of producing art can be forgotten in the blink of an eye. So, what does it all amount to?

How you want to be remembered as an artist may well be the question.  There are certainly degrees of legacy such as having a work in a government collection [although the archive of the South Australian Art Gallery is so extensive that many collected items haven’t been seen in a century] and having an art competition or a building named after you. I did read of a donation of works by a philanthropist ‘artist’ to the local museum named after her which the authorities were embarrassed to hang at all. Legacy is not synonymous with fame or money. Sophie Taeuber-Arp may be the most influential artist you’ve never heard of. Her colourful geometric paintings put her at the centre of the Dada movement in the 1920s but, as with Mrs Pollock, her husband’s reputation was the only one to interest the market. Both went down as a footnote.

There is always the artist statement. It’s intended to bring the audience closer to the artist but many artists find writing such a statement difficult in that pinpointing a moment in the creative process seems inevitably false. An artist statement published in an exhibition catalogue or on an artist’s website can also be wordy, cumbersome and ineffective as a piece of text. ‘I’d rather people take away from the work what they want’ is as much a personal defeat in that the core of the idea isn’t clear enough to be expressed or that words are inadequate. The expectation in terms of legacy though is a clear articulation of ideas and many artists in the 20^th century wrote reams which art historians are required to sift through not just to understand what the artist was on about but where to place them. The world, however, is full of one-off eccentrics who don’t ‘fit’ at all.

The numbers of artists working towards recognition and sales as their prime motivation for creating art has increased exponentially in recent times through the use of social media and Instagram for one is chock-a-block with images and ‘likes’ are tallied up on a minute-by -minute basis. Whether the tally amounts to a legacy is another matter. Essentially the noise and clamour has never been greater as the mythical fifteen minutes of fame looms large on the horizon. Everyone wants to be remembered whether they admit it or not and artists are no exception. In truth the talented and the less talented will equally vanish or survive in public consciousness no matter whether they record every instance of their lives or not. I’m always amused as ‘devastated’ survivors of fires clutch their photo albums in front of the smouldering ruins of the family home and state for the camera with sighs of relief that at least they saved these. I have yet to see an artist clutching armfuls of paintings and sketchbooks in the same situation although at least one has managed to burn down a studio. News services value family albums and pets far more highly than works of art.

Once upon a time a potential buyer of one of my paintings sagely advised me to sign ‘toddy’ on the front. The work itself, in her mind, was secondary to a typical diminutive that promoted intimacy. I have always hated such a nickname and don’t respond to it, but I have also always known that being ‘toddy’ was an important step in local legacy terms.  It’s all in the name, something that ‘Banksy’ figured out long ago as a tool of self-promotion and international recognition. Maybe I should reconsider my position and adopt the diminutive pseudonym while recording my entire life for posterity – just in case there is any chance that I might be forgotten. But then again, there is the Faustian alternative of selling your soul to the capitalist devil.