“You sign your paintings as Doris.
But that’s a pseudonym too, isn’t it?
What’s your real name?”
— a client once asked me, as I was handing over a painting he’d just bought.
THE NAMES ARE A BIT MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT
It was 1986 — yes, the year Chernobyl exploded.
In the maternity ward, among several other new mothers, lay one strikingly beautiful, slightly unhinged woman.
A strict committee of comrades made its rounds, wearing the expression of women checking off a five-year plan rather than approving names for soon-to-be rosy-cheeked babies.
“Little Honza? Now that’s a lovely name.
Maruška, so nicely Czech.
And here we’ll have little Jana.”
“What?!
You want to name your daughter Doris?
Surely you can’t be serious!
She’ll have a hell of a life!”
Looking back, I still can’t quite believe my mother got away with it — fighting tooth and nail, in the dark days of communism, for this exotic German name.
Thanks, Mom!
I’ll take this “hell” with open arms.
A PAINTING NEEDS A SIGNATURE
Getting a name at birth is one thing. Searching for your identity as a teenager is another.
In high school, for some reason that was a mystery to me at the time, I didn’t want to sign my paintings with my own name.
I tried all sorts of things. I’d find names in movie credits, in books, and once I even crowned a painting with the signature “Duck.”
Eventually, the pseudonym “Edward” stuck.
One elderly lady who came to my opening made an interesting observation. She noticed that roughly half the works were signed “Doris” and the smaller other half “Edward.” She concluded it must be an exhibition of two artists. She came up to me and said she loved my paintings, but that Edward’s weren’t really her thing — too rough, with harsher brushstrokes.
Wow, that surprised me.
And when I actually thought about it, it surprised me even more — she was right.
Let the psychologists have a field day with that one.
“Don’t worry, I will,”
— replied a visitor at another exhibition.
WHERE DID EDWARD WOLF COME FROM?
In 2010, I was working on a larger project, and because I was collaborating with someone else, it made sense for the pseudonym to have a surname too.
So, without much deliberation, “Edward Wolf” was born — a pseudonym that somehow got under my skin for a very long time.
AND WHAT ABOUT THE SURNAMES?
Maiden name: Oplová.
Married name: Tesárková Oplová.
Divorced: back to Oplová.
And I have a feeling the next wedding will throw another wrench into things.
So…
Nice to meet you.
My name is Doris,
and I paint.
