Painter Quotes

• My mother said to me, 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.' Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.

  Pablo Picasso

  Confidence, Mother, Encouragement

  "Life with Picasso" by François Gilot, (p. 60), 1964.

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• Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter?

  Pablo Picasso

  Photography, Art, Mirrors

  80 Copy quote

• Every good painter paints what he is.

  Jackson Pollock

  Art, Paint, Artist

  Jackson Pollock, Bernice Rose, Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (1980). “Jackson Pollock, drawing into painting”, Icon

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• 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.

  Mark Rothko

  Artist, Essence, Long

  Mark Rothko, Miguel López-Remiro (2006). “Writings on Art”, p.36, Yale University Press

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• Don't worry about mistakes. Making things out of mistakes, that's creativity.

  Peter Max

  Inspirational, Mistake, Creativity

  60 Copy quote

• When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.

  Pablo Picasso

  Art, Criticism, Together

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• A young painter who cannot liberate himself from the influence of past generations is digging his own grave.

  Henri Matisse

  Inspirational, Past, Digging

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• I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

  Claude Monet

  Art, Nature, Flower

  Claire Joyes, Claude Monet (1975). “Monet at Giverny”, Wh Smith Pub

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• Art is art. Everything else is everything else.

  Ad Reinhardt

  Art, Avant Garde, Simplify

  Ad Reinhardt, Marlborough Gallery (1970). “Ad Reinhardt: black paintings, 1951-1967”

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• In fact, whatever exists in the universe, in essence, in appearance, in the imagination, the painter has first in his mind and then in his hands ... it lies in his power to create them . . .

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Art, Lying, Hands

  Leonardo da Vinci (2008). “Notebooks”, p.185, OUP Oxford

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• The painter should not paint what he sees, but what will be seen.

  Paul Klee

  Art, History, Painting

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• Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.

  Claude Monet

  Motivational, Art, Color

  Claude Monet (1969). “Claude Monet”

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• The painter's obsession with his subject is all that he needs to drive him to work.

  Lucian Freud

  Artist, Needs, Obsession

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• Everything you can imagine is real.

  Pablo Picasso

  Inspirational, Meaningful, Art

  128 Copy quote

• If we don't have a sense of humor, we lack a sense of perspective

  Wayne Thiebaud

  Humor, Perspective, Famous Artist

  66 Copy quote

• I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Inspirational, Education, Dream

  "Marry Your Muse: Making a Lasting Commitment to Your Creativity". Book by Jan Phillips, 1997.

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• When a type design is good it is not because each individual letter of the alphabet is perfect in form, but because there is a feeling of harmony and unbroken rhythm that runs through the whole design, each letter kin to every other and to all.

  Frederic Goudy

  Running, Perfect, Design

  Frederic William Goudy (1940). “Typologia: Studies in Type Design & Type Making, with Comments on the Invention of Typography, the First Types, Legibility, and Fine Printing”, p.43, Univ of California Press

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• Being willing is not enough. We must do.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

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• A kiss from my mother made me a painter.

  Benjamin West

  Mother, Son, Kissing

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations". Compiled by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt and Kate Louise Roberts, 1922.

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• If you look into the past of the successful painter you will find square miles of canvas behind him.

  Charles Webster Hawthorne

  Success, Past, Squares

  Richard Mühlberger, Charles Webster Hawthorne (1999). “Charles Webster Hawthorne”, University of Washington Press

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• I thought the objects we value least because they were ubiquitous were actually the most extraordinary.

  Michael Craig-Martin

  Ubiquity, Perception, Usual

  "Michael Craig-Martin: Up close and impersonal". Interview With Stuart Jeffries, www.theguardian.com. May 4, 2011.

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  Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.

  Pablo Picasso

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• On second thought, I think I am more crazy than my goat.

  Remedios Varo

  Funny, Crazy, Humorous

  72 Copy quote

• The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.

  Willem de Kooning

  Time, Poverty, Trouble

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• An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.

  James Whistler

  Tattoo, Art, Creativity

  63 Copy quote