38 Quotes by Helen Frankenthaler

I've explored a variety of directions and themes over the years. But I think in my painting you can see the signature of one artist, the work of one wrist.

I follow the rules until I go against them all.

I have always been concerned with painting that simultaneously insists on a flat surface and then denies it.

What concerns me when I work, is not whether the picture is a landscape, or whether it's pastoral, or whether somebody will see a sunset in it. What concerns me is - did I make a beautiful picture?

In relations with people, as in art, if you always stick to style, manners, and what will work, and you're never caught off guard, then some beautiful experiences never happen.

I don't start with a color order, but find the colors as I go.

What has made it work, or what makes certain paintings successful or not, has to do with my being a painter and a thinking, feeling person, more than my sex, color, height, origin.

I don't resent being a female painter. I don't exploit it. I paint.

Every so often every artist feels, 'I'll never paint again. The muse has gone out the window.' In 1985, I hardly painted at all for three months, and it was agonizing. I looked at reproductions. I stared at Matisse. I stared at the Old Masters. I stared at the Quattrocento. And I thought to myself - Don't push it! If you try too hard to get at something, you almost push it away.