Quotes from Richard Diebenkorn

I want a painting to be difficult to do. The more obstacles, obstructions, problems - if they don't overwhelm - the better. I would like to feel that I am involved at any stage of the painting with all its moments, not just this 'now' moment where a superficial grace is so available.

If you get an image try to destroy it.

Abstract means literally to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract.

All paintings start out of a mood, out of a relationship with things or people, out of a complete visual impression

I have found in my still-life work that I seem to be able to tell what objects are important to me by what tends to stay in the painting as it develops.

I came to mistrust my desire to explode the picture and supercharge it in some way… what is more important is a feeling of strength in reserve – tension beneath calm.

I would like the colors, their shapes and positions to be arrived at in response to and dictated by the condition of the total space at the time they are considered.

With rare exceptions, I respond most to painting that cuts across grain rather than following it. I think the artist here can get in touch with that grain rather than simply feel its flow. And he really can't cut right across it anyway.

My insights come in periods of working. There are wonderful moments of surprise, but I'm superstitious enough not to want to talk about them.

In abstract painting, I worried about the limited range of possibilities that, as time went on, became increasingly important to me. I wanted to express or deal with differences that an all-over paint and canvas 'presence' neutralized.

My father didn't think being an artist was a respectable or worthy goal for a man.

One wants to see the artifice of the thing as well as the subject.

My father didn't think being an artist was a respectable or worthy goal for a man. He hoped I would see my way to more serious work and would find myself turning towards medicine, law, or business.

Abstract means literally to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract.

Don't be a Pollyanna!

My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful, the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles.

My freedom consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned myself for each one of my undertakings.