Quote

I think I'm painting a picture of two women but it may turn out to be a landscape.

Willem de Kooning

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Willem de Kooning
Age: 92 †
Born: 1904
Born: April 24
Died: 1997
Died: March 19
Artist
Designer
Drawer
Painter
Sculptor
University Teacher
R'dam
Willem De Kooning
Willem DeKooning
William de Kooning
Willem Dekooning
willem de kooning
May
Think
Landscape
Thinking
Picture
Painting
Turn
Turns
Two
Women

More quotes by Willem de Kooning

Image
I paint the way I do because I can keep on putting more and more things in - like drama, pain, anger, love, a figure, a horse, my ideas of space. It doesn't matter if it differs from mine, as long as it comes from the painting, which has its own integrity and intensity.
Willem de Kooning
Image
In art one idea is as good as another.
Willem de Kooning
Image
Content is a glimpse of something, an encounter like a flash. It's very tiny - very tiny. Content.
Willem de Kooning
Image
Yes, I am influenced by everbody. But every time I put my hands in my pockets I find someone else's fingers there.
Willem de Kooning
Image
Maybe in that earlier phase I was painting the woman in me. Art isn't a wholly masculine occupation, you know.
Willem de Kooning
Image
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
Image
You have to keep on the very edge of something, all the time, or the picture dies.
Willem de Kooning
Image
Even an abstract form has to have a likeness.
Willem de Kooning
Image
The problem with property is that it takes so much of your time.
Willem de Kooning
Image
The 'Women' had to do with the female painted through all ages, all those idols, and maybe I was stuck to a certain extent I couldn't go on. It did one thing for me: it eliminated composition, arrangement, relationships, light - all this silly talk about line, colour and form - because that was the thing I wanted to get hold of.
Willem de Kooning
Image
The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves.
Willem de Kooning
Image
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
Image
Flesh was the reason why oil painting was invented
Willem de Kooning
Image
Art never seems to make me peaceful or pure.
Willem de Kooning
Image
Style is a fraud. I always felt the Greeks were hiding behind their columns.
Willem de Kooning
Image
I read somewhere that Rubens said students should not draw from life, but draw from all the great classic casts. Then you really get the measure of them, you really know what to do. And then, put in your own dimples. Isn't that marvelous!
Willem de Kooning
Image
I'm not interested in 'abstracting' or taking things out or reducing painting to design, form, line, and color. I paint this way because I can keep putting more things in it - drama, anger, pain, love, a figure, a horse, my ideas about space. Through your eyes it again becomes an emotion or idea.
Willem de Kooning
Image
Art should not have to be a certain way.
Willem de Kooning
Image
If I stretch my arms and wonder where my fingers are - that is all the space I need as a painter.
Willem de Kooning
Image
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.
Willem de Kooning