Authenticity of Keith Haring signatures and artworks.
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Are these signatures and sketches authentic by Haring?
Signed drawings
8 different signed items
Keith Haring’s signature is an integral part of his art, but it is often positioned in such a way that it does not distract from the overall composition. Haring’s signature is usually small in comparison to the rest of the artwork, and it is often located in the lower right corner of the work.
Haring’s signature is typically written in a cursive, flowing script that is similar to his drawing style. This helps to integrate the signature into the artwork and make it feel like a natural extension of the drawing. Haring saw his signature as an important part of his identity as an artist, and he wanted it to be recognizable and memorable.
Although Haring’s signature may not be the most eye-catching element of his artwork, it is still an important part of his legacy. Regarding any study of the authenticity of a piece, the signature is the most important part to consider in this case. At the end of the signature, Haring often writes the year and his signature circled cross icon.
In this section we will go through the item description, provenance, the included art concepts, and how they relate to both the signature and the authenticity of the works.
The challenge
Signature analysis
We are commissioned to authenticate a number of signed sketched, which look like by Keith Haring.For this work, we firstly created a dataset comprised of 100 photos of authentic signatures of Keith Haring, verified by an art experts. Secondly, we painted a few fake signatures, to validate the result.
GETTING READY
Processing the signatures
We converted the photos of signatures into squared B/W images, to use as input for our neural network, which works with sub-images of 256x256 pixels. 70% of the authentic signatures were separated for training, 10% for validation, and the remaining 20% were reserved for testing. We placed in a different folder the unknown signatures the customer provided us with.
Analyzing the sketches
Figures 4 to 9 show a collection of signed drawings, made using marker pens and charcoal, and the corresponding extracted signature.
The recurring art concepts, like the radiant child, barking dog and dancing figures are closely associated with Keith Haring’s authentic artistic style and vision. They are both motifs that are unique to Haring’s work and are easily recognizable as his own.
The barking dog on Q7 is a symbol of warning, joy, and Haring’s love of animals, while the dancing figures on Q4 and Q8 celebrate the joy and freedom of movement and reflect the vibrant cultural scene in New York City during the 1980s. The radiant child on Q9 represents innocence, hope, and optimism, and it quickly became a signature element of Haring’s work. Today, these motifs continue to captivate and inspire audiences around the world, serving as a testament to the power of art to bring people together and celebrate the human experience.
The barking dog and dancing figures, as well as other motifs in Keith Haring’s work, have been widely reproduced and imitated, sometimes in an attempt to pass off forgeries as authentic Haring artwork. Therefore, understanding the meaning and significance of the recurring motifs in Keith Haring’s work is crucial for authenticating his artwork.
Training our neural network
Our neural networks are trained on the images of authentic signatures
The number of available authentic signatures is finite, so we perform data augmentation: This means randomly translating and rotating the shape of the signature in the squared images. This improves the accuracy of the classification. Additionally, it is also zoomed in and out a bit.
- We trained our model using the authentic samples and skilled forgeries. For this task, we used two networks, an encoder and a decoder, which is able to reconstruct the signatures. After obtaining training convergence, we saved the trained model.
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A.I. EXPERT AUTHENTICATION OF KEITH HARING DRAWINGS
We used A.I. and expert analysis to verify the sketches
On Figure 1(b) we observe the drawing of a dancing figure. Haring drawing style was known for continuous, fluid lines that often depicted figures in motion. Moreover, he was known for drawing on a variety of surfaces, including unconventional ones such as balls, skateboards and walls, so drawing on a can should not affect this unique drawing feature. In this case, however, it is easy to observe interruptions at the corners, which is not characteristic of Haring’s style. This may suggest that the drawing is a reproduction or imitation rather than an original work by Haring himself. It is common to see these discontinuities on later reproductions or imitations of Haring style. This is specially noticeable on the knees and armpits of the dancing figure, highlighted on Figure 4 (a). Haring’s simple yet expressive compositions are indeed difficult to replicate, as his style was unique and highly recognizable. His figures often had a sense of movement and energy that was conveyed through his use of bold, flowing lines. Even when drawing on unconventional surfaces, Haring was able to maintain the fluidity and continuity of his lines, which contributed to the distinctive character of his work.
The radiant baby on Q9 does not have the left arm and the neck united with an stroke, as it was usual for Haring style. It is not common to see authentic drawings skipping or with discontinuities on the main lines. This tell is highlighted on Figure 15.
Authentication of signed invitation
Using our trained model to test the signatures
During testing we compute a probability of the signatures to be authentic. Read our report by clicking on the blue box:
We have also performed verification on a signed Knokke 87 invitation to the mural exposition, and a signed Coke can.
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