Willem de Kooning Quotes - Page 2

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• The idea of space is given to the artist to change if he can. The subject matter in the abstract is space.

  Willem de Kooning

  Artist, Ideas, Space

  Willem De Kooning, John Elderfield, Lauren Mahony (2011). “De Kooning: A Retrospective”, p.13, The Museum of Modern Art

  17 Copy quote

• Content is a glimpse.

  Willem de Kooning

  Vision, Glimpse, Awe

  Willem De Kooning (2001). “Willem De Kooning: Vellums : March 21-April 21, 2001”, Mitchell-Inness & Nash

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• If you're an artist, the problem is to make a picture work whether you are happy or not.

  Willem de Kooning

  Happiness, Artist, Problem

  33 Copy quote

• Even an abstract form has to have a likeness.

  Willem de Kooning

  Abstract, Form, Abstraction

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• I see the canvas and I begin... It's a necessary evil to get into the work, and it's pretty marvelous to be able to get out of it.

  Willem de Kooning

  Evil, Able, Canvas

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• If you pick up some paint with your brush and make somebody's nose with it, this is rather ridiculous when you think of it, theoretically or philosophically. It's really absurd to make an image, like a human image, with paint, today.

  Willem de Kooning

  Thinking, Noses, Today

  Barbara Hess, Willem De Kooning (2004). “Willem de Kooning, 1904-1997: Content as a Glimpse”, p.33, Taschen

  7 Copy quote

• The word 'abstract' comes from the light tower of the philosophers. One of their spotlights that they have particularly focused on 'Art'. [Abstraction was] not so much what you could paint but rather what you could not paint. You could not paint a house or a tree or a mountain. It was then that subject matter came into existence as something you ought not have.

  Willem de Kooning

  Art, Light, House

  "Abstract Expressionist Painting in America". Book by William C. Seitz, p. 104, 1983.

  8 Copy quote

• If I stretch my arms and wonder where my fingers are - that is all the space I need as a painter.

  Willem de Kooning

  Space, Needs, Arms

  Willem De Kooning, John Elderfield, Lauren Mahony (2011). “De Kooning: A Retrospective”, p.135, The Museum of Modern Art

  8 Copy quote

• Maybe in that earlier phase I was painting the woman in me. Art isn't a wholly masculine occupation, you know.

  Willem de Kooning

  Art, Phases, Occupation

  Willem De Kooning, Gagosian Gallery (2004). “De Kooning: a centennial exhibition”

  20 Copy quote

• It's really absurd to make... a human image, with paint, today, when you think about it... But then all of a sudden, it was even more absurd not to do it.

  Willem de Kooning

  Thinking, Portraiture, Today

  Barbara Hess, Willem De Kooning (2004). “Willem de Kooning, 1904-1997: Content as a Glimpse”, p.33, Taschen

  41 Copy quote

• An artist is forced by others to paint out of his own free will.

  Willem de Kooning

  Art, Artist, Free Will

  Willem De Kooning, Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (1969). “Willem de Kooning”

  22 Copy quote

• 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.

  Willem de Kooning

  Art, Feelings, Historical

  Willem De Kooning, Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (1969). “Willem de Kooning”

  44 Copy quote

• My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate.

  Willem de Kooning

  Lying, Thinking, Way

  Willem De Kooning (1979). “Willem de Kooning: Pittsburgh International Series, October 26, 1979-January 6, 1980, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute”

  9 Copy quote

• Im not someone whos ever said anything definitive about his work. In my life also I have very little fixed form. I can change overnight.

  Willem de Kooning

  Littles, Form, Said

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• In art, one idea is as good as another. If one takes the idea of trembling, for instance, all of a sudden most art starts to tremble. Michelangelo starts to tremble. El Greco starts to tremble. All the Impressionists start to tremble.

  Willem de Kooning

  Art, Ideas, Trembling

  Willem De Kooning, Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (1969). “Willem de Kooning”

  17 Copy quote

• Art never seems to make me peaceful or pure.

  Willem de Kooning

  Love, Art, Peace

  Willem De Kooning, John Elderfield, Lauren Mahony (2011). “De Kooning: A Retrospective”, p.26, The Museum of Modern Art

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• Spiritually I am wherever my spirit allows me to be, and that is not necessarily in the future... Art never seems to make me peaceful or pure.

  Willem de Kooning

  Art, Peaceful, Spirit

  Willem De Kooning (1979). “Willem de Kooning: Pittsburgh International Series, October 26, 1979-January 6, 1980, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute”

  36 Copy quote

• I feel sometimes an American artist must feel, like a baseball player or something - a member of a team writing American history.

  Willem de Kooning

  Baseball, Team, Writing

  Willem De Kooning (1979). “Willem de Kooning: Pittsburgh International Series, October 26, 1979-January 6, 1980, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute”

  8 Copy quote

• In art one idea is as good as another.

  Willem de Kooning

  Art, Ideas, Trembling

  Willem De Kooning, John Elderfield, Lauren Mahony (2011). “De Kooning: A Retrospective”, p.14, The Museum of Modern Art

  24 Copy quote

• An artist is someone who makes art... He didn't invent it.

  Willem de Kooning

  Art, Artist

  8 Copy quote

• Art should not have to be a certain way.

  Willem de Kooning

  Art, Way, Should

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• When, about fifteen years ago, I walked into Arshile's studio for the first time, the atmosphere was so beautiful that I got a little dizzy and when I came to, I was bright enough to take the hint immediately. If the bookkeepers think it necessary to make sure of where things and people came from, well then, I came from 36 Union Square. I am glad that it is about impossible to get away from his powerful influence.

  Willem de Kooning

  Beautiful, Powerful, Thinking

  ART news, Volume 47, No. 9, January 1949.

  8 Copy quote

• Once, after finishing a picture, I thought I would stop for awhile, take a trip, do things-the next time I thought of this, I found five years had gone by.

  Willem de Kooning

  Art, Years, Finishing

  Willem De Kooning, Gagosian Gallery (2004). “De Kooning: a centennial exhibition”

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• The point they (Lissitzky, Rodchenko, Tatlin, Gabo, the neo-Plasticists, and so on) all had in common was to be inside and outside at the same time. For me, to be inside and outside is to be in an unheated studio with broken windows in the winter, or taking a nap on somebody's porch in the summer.

  Willem de Kooning

  Summer, Winter, Naps

  "Abstract Expressionist Painting in America". Book by William C. Seitz, p. 134, 1983.

  14 Copy quote

• Man's own form in space - his body - was a private prison; and that it was because of this imprisoning misery - because he was hungry and overworked and went to a horrid place called home late at night in the rain, and his bones ached and his head was heavy.

  Willem de Kooning

  Rain, Home, Night

  "Abstract Expressionist Painting in America". Book by William C. Seitz, p. 135, 1983.

  7 Copy quote

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