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Artist Quotes by David Hockney

71 Artist quotes by David Hockney

All Artist quotes David Hockney’s page

A sketch replayed on an iPad lets Hockney see his own drawing from a new angle, showing how technology can reveal hidden details. He believes teaching drawing is teaching people to look, and that true artists must keep working rather than chasing pleasure.

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Easel painting means small painting.

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I paint what I like, when I like and where I like.

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I'm not going to stop painting just to take orders.

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Teaching people to draw is teaching people to look

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Drawing takes time. A line has time in it

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I do believe that painting can change the world.

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I've always wanted to be able to paint the dawn.

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Paint something every day.

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There's no need to believe what an artist says. Believe what he does; that's what counts.

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I generally only paint people I know, I'm not a flatterer really.

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I've always been a looker. Loads of people say, "I never saw that" - but that's what artists do.

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Every good artist I know, I always think works hard, we're working all the time.

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I mean if you draw you like drawing, it's er, an activity you do all the time actually.

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I've never been interested in, much in the politics of the art world, it doesn't interest me.

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It's all one to me: opera, painting, drawing, faxes.

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Drawing is rather like playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.

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Future art that is based on appearances won't look like the art that's gone before. Even revivals of a period are not…

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I think Picasso was, without doubt, the greatest portraitist of the 20th century, if not any other century.

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Shadows sometimes people don't see shadows. The Chinese of course never paint them in pictures, oriental art never deals with shadow. But…

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We need all kinds of artists. We have no need to destroy drawing. We lose so much. This wouldn't happen in music.

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What I always longed to do was to be able to paint like I can draw, most artists would tell you that,…

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In the end nobody knows how it's done — how art is made. It can't be explained. Optical devices are just tools.…

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Loads of people, particularly artists, hate pretty pictures. Now I've never met anyone who didn't like a pretty face.

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In art, new ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling; you can't divorce the two, as, we are now aware, you…

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Perspective is a law of optics... The Chinese did not have a system like it. Indeed, it is said they rejected the…

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I usually only draw myself in down periods... I suppose that's why I often draw myself looking grim. I just think, 'Let's…

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Everything does come from nature. That's where you get new ideas. Just draw the landscape. I felt doing it with a bit…

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Before he did all those lovely line drawings, Matisse would make really detailed charcoal drawings and tear them up. He wouldn't leave…

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“Artists, real artists, have to work. They can’t be hedonists. Really good painters are always working. The world is such a marvelous…

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Dawn is about luminosity and so is the iPhone... The little drawings of the dawn are done while I'm still in bed...…

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It is difficult to say why I decided I wanted to be an artist. Obviously, I had some facility, more than other…

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Until I saw my drawings replayed on the iPad, I'd never seen myself draw. Someone watching me would be concentrating on the…

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What the art historians had forgotten is that in Chinese, Japanese, Persian, and Indian art, they never painted shadows. Why did they…

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The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

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I went to art school actually when I was sixteen years old.

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All art is contemporary, if it's alive, and if it's not alive, what's the point of it?

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Who's going to ask a painter to see a diploma? They'd say, 'Can I see your paintings?', wouldn't they?

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All painting, no matter what you are painting, is abstract in that it's got to be organized.

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I think cubism has not fully been developed. It is treated like a style, pigeonholed and that's it.

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Painting and drawing has been here for 35,000 years.

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More by David Hockney

You can't believe any picture nowadays, if it's digital. You can't really believe. If you see me shaking hands with Mr. [Barack] Obama, it…

I had always planned to make a large painting of the early spring, when the first leaves are at the bottom of the trees,…

I've always said that the only thing a photograph is good at capturing faithfully is another flat surface.

I'm rather shocked by what I thought was simple mindedness actually. I thought they're not looking, they're not actually looking.

You would think death was an optional extra nowadays. Nobody wants to tick that box.

I live wherever I happen to be.

Until I saw my drawings replayed on the iPad, I'd never seen myself draw. Someone watching me would be concentrating on the exact moment,…

You always need a bit of low-tech.You always need a pair of scissors, it seems to me. You can do better things… The high-tech,…

When you are older, you realise that everything else is just nothing compared to painting and drawing.

The photograph isn't good enough. It's not real enough.

In fact, I'm a bit of a slob, but I've always said my excuse, I have a higher sense of order, I can see…

Spring is very energising to me.

No theoretician, no writer on art, however interesting he or she might be, could be as interesting as Picasso. A good writer on art…

How difficult it is to learn not to see like cameras, which has had such an effect on us. The camera sees everything at…

With chemical film, it was possible to alter photographs, but you had to be an expert. That's not true any more. The LA Times…