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Quotes by Artist


"I don't listen to what art critics say. I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is."

"I find that acrylics dry very fast - which is supposed to be its charm; however, I find that because of that quality they don't blend as nicely as the oils. The oils, for one thing, are softer and more flexible than the acrylics. Also, the colors are brighter with oils."

"I felt very strongly the whole social impact of that depression, you know, and I felt very strongly about the efforts that this Resettlement Administration was trying to accomplish; resettling people, helping them, and so on."

"When a man returned from the field and we'd look at the work, we'd criticize each other very genuinely and never offensively. And we would avoid all tricks, angle shots were just horrible to us."

"The time when I had desire to go to the United States I didn't have a penny. It was in the middle of the depression, you know. I couldn't get as far as Hoboken at that time."

"You can not do what you want to do unless you know the correct technique. The only other way you can learn how to do it is by doing it yourself, which would take twice as long than if you went to school."

"I feel, having the choices I had, I felt I had more control over my own medium than I did over photography."

"It's a little bit like my inability to read a guide book before I go anywhere. I can read it after I've been there and by the same logic I refuse to accept any technical stunts from anybody. I refused to learn more than I knew and I confess I missed a great deal."


"In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing."

"Between my head and my hand, there is always the face of death."

"It was always my intention that The Frieze should be housed in a room which would provide a suitable architectural frame for it."

"Now, to describe the process of the Wrapped Reichstag, which went from 1971 to '95, there is an entire book about that, because each one of our projects has its own book. The book is not an art book, meaning it's not written by an art historian."

"It is not only one person's work, it's really a partnership and collaboration during all these years."

"I confess that Roy was a little bit dictatorial in his editing and he ruined quite a number of my pictures, which he stopped doing later. He used to punch a hole through a negative. Some of them were incredibly valuable. He didn't understand at the time."


"And I think a painting has such a limited life anyway."

"We must not discriminate between things. Where things are concerned there are no class distinctions. We must pick out what is good for us where we can find it."

"There have been many different artists that have been inspirational. I suppose the question is directed to what was the reason why I went into fantasy illustration."


"The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist himself."

"Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers."

"I was a beginner again. I practiced hard and used to listen very closely to recordings of American jazz drummers such as Tony Williams and Kenny Clarke."


"All perceiving is also thinking, all reasoning is also intuition, all observation is also invention."

"One doesn't make art for other people, even though I am very concerned with the viewer."


"Very quickly a painting is turned into a facsimile of itself when one becomes so familiar with with it that one recognizes it without looking at it."


"Don't bother about being modern. Unfortunately it is the one thing that, whatever you do, you cannot avoid."

"I will make up for it now, I have not a moment to lose."
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