What do non-Japanese tosogu artisans sign their work with?

[NotANinja]

Apologies if this is a stupid question but I cannot read kanji and know that some western artisans sign them this way, so I am wondering what they say as western names don't translate well into kanji.

[Spartancrest]

Perhaps Gustavo Hoefs could answer this? : He has done several works and adopted one set of Kanji  [グー ] which is pronounced Gū.  This is close to his pseudonym of Goo

However he has had feedback from Japanese and others that leaving his pieces unsigned in anyway is ideal - a view I tend to disagree with. If you are proud of your work why hide it? Also an unsigned modern utsushi just muddies the waters and creates future problems of authenticity and provenance. No one would like their work to be lost or worse, thrown in as some sort of Chinese fake. My opinion is "You make it, you take ownership"  JMHO

Edited yesterday at 03:00 AM by Spartancrest

[NotANinja]

Thank you for your reply Dale! Yes I couldn't agree more with your comment about utsushi - especially if it's high quality, after a few buy and sell cycles it's provenance might get lost and possibly even mis-identified as a good condition antique! 

 

But thank you, I always wondered if it was kanji pronounced like their name (or as close as) or if they took a pseudonym and signed it with that

[Spartancrest]

I am no expert on kanji - I struggle with the crazy English language! But try these kanji ロバート  Robāto  

I see problems translating surnames - even Japanese surnames can translate to "odd" word groups. 

 

越前住 記内作  = Echizen-Ju, Kinai Saku  But if you put this into google translate it comes out as "Written by Echizen Sumi"