Why did Van Gogh sign his paintings as ‘Vincent’?
Art historian Julia Engelmayer has published a study titled 'Simply ‘Vincent’: An Overview of Van Gogh’s Signed Paintings' on the Van Gogh Museum's website, analyzing why and how Vincent van Gogh signed his works. The research reveals that only 133 of his 840 surviving paintings bear a signature (16%), an unusually low proportion for a 19th-century artist. Van Gogh signed with only his first name due to strained family relations and the difficulty non-Dutch speakers had pronouncing his surname. The study also highlights his predominant use of red signatures (on 75 works), angled signatures on over half of his signed pieces, and a distinctive horseshoe-shaped 'V' used during his Arles period.