Artist Quotes by Georgia O'Keeffe

Art is a wicked thing. It is what we are.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

Slits in nothingness are not very easy to paint.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

To create one's world in any of the arts takes courage.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

Since I cannot sing, I paint.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I got half-a-dozen paintings from that shattered plate.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

When people read erotic symbols into my painting, they're really thinking about their own affairs.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

If one could only reproduce nature, and always with less beauty than the original, why paint at all?

— Georgia O'Keeffe

Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I am trying with all my skill to do a painting that is all woman, as well as all of me.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

Filling a space in a beautiful way - that is what art means to me.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

All the earth colours of the painter's palette are out there in the many miles of badlands...

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I believe an artist is the last person in the world who can afford to be affected.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I don't really know where I got my artists idea. The scraps of what I remember do not explain to me where…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

“I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to ... I found that I…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

Sometimes I start in a very realistic fashion, and as I go on from one painting to another of the same kind,…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

Now and then when I get an idea for a picture, I think, how ordinary. Why paint that old rock? Why not…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

Before I put brush to canvas, I question, 'Is this mine? ...Is it influenced by some idea which I have acquired from…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

Color is one of the great things in the world that makes life worth living to me and as I have come…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I know now that most people are so closely concerned with themselves that they are not aware of their own individuality, I…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

On the way I stood a moment looking out across the marshes with tall cattails, a patch of water, more marsh, then…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

The clean clear colours were in my head. But one day as I looked at the brown burned wood of the Shanty,…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I realized that were I to paint flowers small, no one would look at them because I was unknown. So I thought…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

Artists and religionists are never far apart, they go to the sources of revelation for what they choose to experience and what…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

School and things that painters have taught me even keep me from painting as I want to. I decided I was a…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I find that I have painted my life, things happening in my life - without knowing. After painting the shell and shingle…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

“You paint from your subject, not what you see…I rarely paint anything I don’t know very well. It was surprising to me…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I decided to start anew-to strip away what I had been taught, to accept as true my own thinking. This was one…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

God told me if I painted that mountain enough, I could have it.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

My painting is what I have to give back to the world for what the world gives to me.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

The painting is like a thread that runs through all the reasons for all the other things that make one's life.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I don't know what Art is but I know some things it isn't when I see them.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I find that I have painted my life - things happening in my life - without knowing.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I like to convey the idea that art is important in everyday life.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I don't very much enjoy looking at paintings in general. I know too much about them. I take them apart.

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I can't live where I want to, I can't go where I want to go, I can't do what I want to,…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I'd been taught to paint like other people, and I thought, what's the use? I couldn't do any better than they, or…

— Georgia O'Keeffe

I am not an exponent of expressionism. I don't know exactly what that means, but I don't like the sound of it.…

— Georgia O'Keeffe