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Quote by Frank Stella

“Up until 35 I had a slightly skewed world view. I honestly believed everybody in the world wanted to make abstract paintings, and people only became lawyers and doctors and brokers and things because they couldn't make abstract paintings”

Quote by Frank Stella

Author

Frank Stella is an influential American painter born on May 12, 1936. Known for his minimalist style and unique painting techniques, Stella's works have had a profound impact on the art world. more

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“I was worried in the '80s that the best abstract painting had become obsessed with materiality, and painterly gestures and materiality were up against the wall.”

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“I want to make exalted art. A successful image has pictorial lift. I am looking for whatever is up there”

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“One learns about painting by looking at and imitating other painters. I can't stress enough how important it is, if you are interested at all in painting, to look and to look a great deal at painting. There is no other way to find out about painting.”

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“All art is a memory of age-old things, dark things, whose fragments live on in the artist.”

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Book:Paul Klee, 1879-1940: A Retrospective Exhibition

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“The more horrible this world (as today, for instance), the more abstract our art, whereas a happy world brings forth an art of the here and now.”

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“I had a difficult time hearing my own inner voice about what I wanted to be in this life, because there were all these perfect examples of what a man actually does. The notion is that he goes to college, gets married and provides. That's what a man does.”

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“Democracy with its semi-civilization sincerely cherishes junk. The artists power should be spiritual. But the power of the majority is material. When these worlds meet occasionally, it is pure coincidence.”

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Book:The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918

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“We construct and keep on constructing, yet intuition is still a good thing.”

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“There was a time when meanings were focused and reality could be fixed; when that sort of belief disappeared, things became uncertain and open to interpretation.”

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Book:The Eye's Mind: Collected Writings 1965-2009

Source: The Eye's Mind: Collected Writings 1965-2009

“Painting is, I think, inevitably an archaic activity and one that depends on spiritual values.”

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Book:Bridget Riley: dialogues on art

Source: Bridget Riley: dialogues on art