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. — Willem de Kooning Copy Share Image
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… — Willem de Kooning Copy Share Image
I think I'm painting a picture of two women but it may turn out to be a landscape. — Willem de Kooning Copy Share Image
Im not someone whos ever said anything definitive about his work. In my life also I have very little fixed form. I can change… — Willem de Kooning Copy Share Image
Style is a fraud. I always felt the Greeks were hiding behind their columns. — Willem de Kooning Copy Share Image
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.… — Willem de Kooning Copy Share Image
The idea of space is given to the artist to change if he can. The subject matter in the abstract is space. — Willem de Kooning Copy Share Image
If I stretch my arms and wonder where my fingers are - that is all the space I need as a painter. — Willem de Kooning Copy Share Image
The artist fills space with an attitude. The attitude never comes from himself alone. — Willem de Kooning Copy Share Image
I feel sometimes an American artist must feel, like a baseball player or something - a member of a team writing American history. — Willem de Kooning Copy Share Image
Maybe in that earlier phase I was painting the woman in me. Art isn't a wholly masculine occupation, you know. — Willem de Kooning Copy Share Image
