8 Quotes by Elaine de Kooning

Every artist returns to things. The drawings that you make as a child or as an adolescent and the ideas that you have as a young beginning artist, no doubt they crop up again and again.

Women can also be creative in total isolation. I know excellent women artists who do original work without any response to speak of. Maybe they are used to lack of feedback. Maybe they are tougher.

A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun, an event first and only secondarily an image.

Artists are like cockroaches; everything is grist for the mill.

Art has been hijacked by nonartists. It’s been taken over by bookkeeping. The whole thing is so corrupt. But I suppose that’s okay. For artists, everything is grist for the mill. Artists are like cockroaches; we can’t be stamped out.

Inspiration is indispensable to my work, but it is hard to come by. It is there or it is not; it is a gift of the gods.

I’m more interested in character. Character comes out of the work. Style is applied or imposed on it.

I made my first trip west of the Hudson and it was a revelation. The naked musculature of the Rockies was overpowering and my painting responded.