Quotes from Willem de Kooning

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

I make pictures and someone comes in and calls it art.

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.

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

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

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

Every so often, a painter has to destroy painting. Cezanne did it, Picasso did it with Cubism. Then Pollock did it. He busted our idea of a picture all to hell. Then there could be new paintings again.

I don't paint to live, I live to paint.

In art one idea is as good as another.

The past does not influence me; I influence it.

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

The past does not influence me; I influence it.

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.

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

You have to keep on the very edge of something, all the time, or the picture dies.

Yes, I am influenced by everbody. But every time I put my hands in my pockets I find someone else's fingers there.

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.

The problem with property is that it takes so much of your time.

Not even for a million dollars would I paint a tree.

Art never seems to make me peaceful or pure.

I might work on a painting for a month, but it has too look like I painted it in a minute.

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.

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.

I don't paint to live, I live to paint.