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

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
Feel
Member
Sometimes
Baseball
Must
Members
Feels
Player
Writing
Team
Something
American
Like
History
Artist

More quotes by Willem de Kooning

Image
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.
Willem de Kooning
Image
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
Image
The past does not influence me I influence it.
Willem de Kooning
Image
Even abstract shapes must have a likeness
Willem de Kooning
Image
Style is a fraud. I always felt the Greeks were hiding behind their columns.
Willem de Kooning
Image
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
Image
Not even for a million dollars would I paint a tree.
Willem de Kooning
Image
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
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
An artist is forced by others to paint out of his own free will.
Willem de Kooning
Image
If you're an artist, the problem is to make a picture work whether you are happy or not.
Willem de Kooning
Image
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
Image
You have to keep on the very edge of something, all the time, or the picture dies.
Willem de Kooning
Image
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
Image
Art never seems to make me peaceful or pure. I always seem to be wrapped in the melodrama of vulgarity. I do not think... of art as a situation of comfort.
Willem de Kooning
Image
Flesh was the reason why oil painting was invented
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
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
Image
The problem with property is that it takes so much of your time.
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