Richard Diebenkorn Quotes

Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities but consider them absolutely expendable.

Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion.

My father didn’t think being an artist was a respectable or worthy goal for a man. He hoped I would see my way to more serious work and would find myself turning towards medicine, law, or business.

I want a painting to be difficult to do. The more obstacles, obstructions, problems – if they don’t overwhelm – the better. I would like to feel that I am involved at any stage of the painting with all its moments, not just this ‘now’ moment where a superficial grace is so available.

When I am halfway there with a painting, it can occasionally be thrilling… But it happens very rarely; usually it’s agony… I go to great pains to mask the agony. But the struggle is there. It’s the invisible enemy.

If you get an image try to destroy it.

Do search, but in order to find other than what is searched for.

My insights come in periods of working. There are wonderful moments of surprise, but I’m superstitious enough not to want to talk about them.

My father didn’t think being an artist was a respectable or worthy goal for a man.

I keep plastering it until it comes around to what I want, in terms of all I know and think about painting now, as well as in terms of the initial observation.

Abstract means literally to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract for he must create his own work from his visual impressions. A realistic or non-objective approach makes no difference. The result is what counts.

Don’t be a Pollyanna!

Mistakes can’t be erased, but they move you from your present position.

I would like the colors, their shapes and positions to be arrived at in response to and dictated by the condition of the total space at the time they are considered.

I can never accomplish what I want – only what I would have wanted had I thought of it beforehand.

I don’t go into the studio with the idea of ‘saying’ something. What I do is face the blank canvas and put a few arbitrary marks on it that start me on some sort of dialogue.

I want painting to be difficult to do.

Somehow don’t be bored, but if you must, use it in action. Use its destructive potential.

In a successful painting everything is integral – all the parts belong to the whole. If you remove an aspect or element you are removing its wholeness.