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Willem de Kooning Biography

Willem de Kooning

Willem de Kooning (/ˈwɪləm də ˈkuːnɪŋ/; Dutch: [ˈʋɪləm də ˈkoːnɪŋ]; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. He moved to the United States in 1926, and became an American citizen in 1962. On December 9, 1943, he married painter Elaine Fried.

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Willem de Kooning Quotes

An artist is someone who makes art. . . He didn't invent it.

Art, Artist, Invent

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.

Art, Peaceful, Think, Thinking

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

Like, Look, Looks, Might, Minute, Months

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.

Art, Artists, Becomes, Feelings, Historical

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!

Classic, Dimples, Draw, Said, Students

Even abstract shapes must have a likeness

Abstract, Likeness, Shapes

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.

Art, Make, Peaceful, Spirit

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.

Definitive, Form, Littles, Overnight, Said

When, about fifteen years ago, I walked into Arshile's studio for the first time, the atmosphere was so beautiful that I got a little dizzy and when I came to, I was bright enough to take the hint immediately. If the bookkeepers think it necessary to make sure of where things and people came from, well then, I came from 36 Union Square. . . I am glad that it is about impossible to get away from his powerful influence.

Beautiful, Bookkeepers, Fifteen, Powerful, Thinking, Years

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.

Able, Begin, Canvas, Evil, Pretty, See

What you do when you paint, you take a brush full of paint, get paint on the picture, and you have faith.

Brush, Brushes, Faith, Full, Have Faith, Paint

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.

Become, Lies, Lying, See, Thinking, Way

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

Poor, Poverty, Takes, Time, Trouble

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

Art, Make, Pictures

In art one idea is as good as another.

Art, Good, Idea, Ideas, Trembling

Art should not have to be a certain way.

Art, Certain, Should, Way

I have to change to stay the same.

Change, Same, Stay

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

Art, Live, Paint, Passion

The point they (Lissitzky, Rodchenko, Tatlin, Gabo , the neo-Plasticists, and so on) all had in common was to be inside and outside at the same time. . . For me, to be inside and outside is to be in an unheated studio with broken windows in the winter, or taking a nap on somebody's porch in the summer.

Broken, Naps, Studio, Summer, Taking, Winter

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.

Art, Finishing, Trip, Years

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