David Hockney Quotes (34 Quotes)

But slowly I began to use cameras and then think about what it was that was going on. It took me a long time, I mean I actually played with cameras and photography for about 20 years.

Most artists work all the time, they do actually, especially good artists, they work all the time, what else is there to do? I mean you do.

It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does, rather than what he says about his work.

There are enough no smoking places now.

Shadows sometimes people don't see shadows. The Chinese of course never paint them in pictures, oriental art never deals with shadow. But I noticed these shadows and I knew it meant it was sunny.

Anything simple always interests me.

But the moment you use an ordinary camera, you are not seeing the picture, remember, meaning, you had to remember what you've taken. Now you could see it of course, with a digital thing, but remember in 1982 you couldn't.

What I didn't know was I was deeply attracted to the big space.

We grow small trying to be great.

The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.

Always live in the ugliest house on the street - then you don't have to look at it.

It's really about liberty. I'm very concerned about a growing intolerance and bossiness throughout society. Pubs are not health clubs.

I think Picasso was, without doubt, the greatest portraitist of the 20th century, if not any other century.

Smoking calms me down. It's enjoyable. I don't want politicians deciding what is exciting in my life.

Someone has to speak up. It's a serious subject because really the subject is liberty.

Well, in Bradford I could say I was brought up in Bradford and Hollywood.

Well you can't teach the poetry, but you can teach the craft.

I made a photograph of a garden in Kyoto, the Zen garden, which is a rectangle. But a photograph taken from any one point will not show, well it shows a rectangle, but not with ninety degree angles.

I'm a bit claustrophobic, I know that now.

I never work with music. I hate background music, always did. I only like music in the foreground, meaning, deliberately listen to it, actually.

Television is becoming a collage - there are so many channels that you move through them making a collage yourself. In that sense, everyone sees something a bit different.

Yes, I did, I mean I painted er, in a kind of abstract expressionist way, because of course that was exciting.

Smoking, ... calms me down. And it's enjoyable. A little bit of what you fancy does you good. I don't want politicians deciding what is exciting in my life. These are decisions you make yourself, not government.

When she told me that, I told her, well, shut up, because Mr and Mrs Clark and Blanche doesn't sound as good as Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy. And it was my title, not hers, anyway.

But, I would always be thinking of how pictures are constructed and colour, how to use it, I mean you're using it for constructing, makes you think about it, the place did as well.

Pubs aren't health clubs. To me, we're creating a suburban dreariness that would drive me mad.

Art has to move you and design does not, unless it's a good design for a bus.

You had to be aware that I saw that photography was a mere episode in the history of the optical projection and when the chemicals ended, meaning the picture was fixed by chemicals, we were in a new era.

A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

Well, I was amazed, really. I mean, only because of the other company. I was quite amazed.

We live in an age where the artist is forgotten. He is a researcher. I see myself that way.

No theoretician, no writer on art, however interesting he or she might be, could be as interesting as Picasso. A good writer on art may give you an insight to Picasso, but, after all, Picasso was there first.

And then I went round the corner and there's a Van Gogh portrait, and you just think, well, this is another level. A higher level, actually. I love the Sargent, but it's not the level of Van Gogh.