Sigmar Polke Quotes

The museums are here to teach the history of art and something more as well, for, if they stimulate in the weak a desire to imitate, they furnish the strong with the means of their emancipation.

I began drawing as a very young child and had a grandfather who experimented with photography, so those things constituted my first exposure to art.

One learns about painting by looking at and imitating other painters.

I've been fifty thousand times to the Louvre. I have copied everything in drawing, trying to understand.

Whatever an artist's personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists.

I don't think that I'm over his influence but they probably don't look like Picassos; Picasso himself would probably have thrown up looking at my pictures.

No doubt, it is useful for an artist to know all the forms of art which have preceded or which accompany his. That is a sign of strength if it is a question of looking for a stimulus or recognizing mistakes he must avoid.

When I started out, I wanted to paint the Sistine Chapel. But I didn't have the content.

As I very much liked to draw and paint as a child, I entered a special art program in high school, which was very much like being in an art school imbedded in a regular high school curriculum.

If you look at art history, at Goya or Gainsborough, it's always about acknowledging the people of your time who have influence.

And I have exposed myself to art so that my work has something beyond just the usual potter.

I am a big fan of the Impressionists, and in my school days, I was inspired by Caravaggio, Velazquez and Rembrandt.

Growing up, I enjoyed drawing, but it was always in the service of an idea. I drew all the time, and I enjoyed making.

I'm not an Abstraction Expressionist, but I think dedication to paintings comes from an early interest in that work.

I've been drawing since I was five years old.

Anyone in the arts has had an experience of seeing someone who they related to doing something and thinking, 'I could do that.' If you have one generation where you force its hand a bit, then the next one fills in the gaps, because it's seen an example of what can be done.

Kanye is a student of art. He's an art-school-dropout type of kid that will talk about art till the cows come home.

The more I get to know more artists, the more they inspire me.

What happened in my life made me a better artist.

I like drawing from all kinds of territories in art.

How our old friend [Michelangelo] of the Sistine would have loved to photograph his workers, perched on the fragile planks. Dali was right to say Leonardo only worked from photographs.

I have had three masters, Nature, Velasquez, and Rembrandt.

At some future time I shall see New York the artist's ground. I think you will create an American School.

Life imitates art -- but badly.

I come from an art history background. I studied at a master's degree level; I chose to dork out on art for much of my adult life. A lot of my heroes are artists and a lot of my musical heroes have an artistic side.