29 Quotes by Richard Diebenkorn

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.

My freedom consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned myself for each one of my undertakings.

Don’t ‘discover’ a subject of any kind.

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.

If you get an image try to destroy it.

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

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.

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

One wants to see the artifice of the thing as well as the subject.