Willem de Kooning Quotes

The great use of copying, if it be at all useful, should seem to be in learning color; yet even coloring will never be perfectly attained by servilely copying the model before you.

The living model never answers well the idea or impressions the painter wishes to express; one must, therefore, learn to do without one, and for that, you must acquire facility, furnish one's memory to the point of infinitude, and make numerous drawings after the old masters.

I love painting. I went to college in fine arts, and I still do it all the time.

My paintings are rubbish.

Art can only be taught by artists.

The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does.

The only thing they can't teach you at art school is art.

In French, there is an old expression, la patte, meaning the artist's touch, his personal style, his 'paw'. I wanted to get away from la patte and from all that retinal painting.

Of course, in the art class, I was the model.

It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism.

To say to the painter that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player that he may sit on the piano.

Clare Henderson creates the most beautiful delicate prints and paintings.

An actor should take lessons from a painter and a sculptor.

I'd never painted anything before. I was quite content to take other people's work since I didn't care anyway about the subject matter. I approached subject matter as a scoundrel. I had nothing to say about it whatsoever. I only wanted to make these exciting paintings.

I've done figure drawing classes or whatever.

You have to be creative. It's the basics. You can't be Picasso unless you know how to draw a real face; then you can turn it upside down.

I always like to get a role where I think, 'Ah, I know this is probably going to be played like this, but I'm going to do it like this.'

People can see you on TV sloshing paint around with big four-inch brushes, and I learned to talk to camera in a friendly voice, not talking down to people, just explaining what I was doing. People like Picasso, Van Gogh, and Rembrandt did not have a weekly TV programme where people could see them painting.

It's very important that an artist's job is to be a great artist.

Collage is not a kitchen sink; it's not a refuge for the compositionally disabled.

I'm inspired by Jackson Pollock; splashing layer upon layer, using different materials, experimenting with new methods to produce something fresh. I'd love to be able to create in this way!

I'm not much of an art guy but I really do love Shelby and Sandy's work - they look like they're made on a computer but they're hand-painted.

Just because someone said painting is dead doesn't mean that it's a fact or the truth - painting is the soul food of art, in a way.

I had really great art classes. Really great art teachers. Arts played a very important role in having a place to express yourself uniquely.

Obviously, something like ballet, you have music, you dance with the music and it's a very direct connection. With visual art, when there's no music that accompanies the art, such as great masterworks in a museum, you wind up interpreting what the artist is doing, how the artist made that work and what they're conveying.