Howard Hodgkin Quotes

You keep on balancing and balancing and balancing until the picture wins, because then the subject's turned into the picture.
Howard Hodgkin

Keep, Until, Picture

A collection makes its own demands. Many artists have been collectors. I think of it rather as an illness. I felt it was using up too much energy.
Howard Hodgkin

Energy, Rather, Makes

A painting is finished when the subject comes back, when what has caused the painting to be made comes back as an object.
Howard Hodgkin

Made, Painting, Subject

Collecting has been my great extravagance. It's a way of being. I collect for the same reason that I eat too much-I'm one of nature's shoppers.
Howard Hodgkin

Nature, Great, Same

I am happy for people to talk about my pictures, but I wish devoutly that I was not expected to talk about them myself.
Howard Hodgkin

Happy, Wish, Talk

I am isolated as an artist, not as a person.
Howard Hodgkin

Person, Artist, Isolated

I don't look at the work of my contemporaries very much; I tend to look at pictures by dead artists. It's much easier to get near their paintings.
Howard Hodgkin

Work, Dead, Pictures

I don't really have a historical overview of my work at all. I'm not an art historian. I don't see that there's this period and that period.
Howard Hodgkin

Work, Art, Period

I don't think you can lightly paint a picture. It's an activity I take very seriously.
Howard Hodgkin

Picture, Seriously, Paint

I fell through a crack for years. Historically, I am a nothing because I fit in no category. I can only be me.
Howard Hodgkin

Nothing, Through, Fit

I find old copies of National Gallery catalogues, which are written in the dryest possible prose, infinitely soothing.
Howard Hodgkin

Find, Old, Possible

I hate painting.
Howard Hodgkin

I look at my pictures, and I think, 'Well, how did I do that?'
Howard Hodgkin

I once was interviewed and got so exasperated that I said, 'What do you want, a shopping list?' They kept asking, 'What's in this picture?'
Howard Hodgkin

Said, Once, Picture

I think that words are often extraneous to what I do.
Howard Hodgkin

Words, Often, Extraneous

I think words come between the spectator and the picture.
Howard Hodgkin

Words, Between, Picture

I want my pictures to be things. I want them to be made up of marks that are physically and individually self-sufficient.
Howard Hodgkin

Made, Pictures, Physically

I'm very envious of the few artists who are any good and still do portraits.
Howard Hodgkin

Good, Few, Artists

I'm vulnerable to criticism. Any artist is, because you work alone in your studio and, until recently, critics were the only way you'd get any feedback.
Howard Hodgkin

Work, Alone, Until

In England, it's thought to be morally suspect to worry about what your surroundings look like.
Howard Hodgkin

Thought, Worry, England

In the United States there has been a kind of a structure in the Modern art world. The New York School was nearly a coherent thing-for a minute.
Howard Hodgkin

Art, School, United

Matisse was very clear about saying that you have to blow your own trumpet and explain yourself, which I think has been slightly forgotten.
Howard Hodgkin

Yourself, Saying, Forgotten

My friends tend to be writers. I think writers and painters are really all the same-we just sit in our rooms.
Howard Hodgkin

Friends, Sit, Writers

My language is what I use, and if I lost that, I wouldn't be able to say anything.
Howard Hodgkin

Lost, Able, Language

The picture surface recedes just as much in the 20th century as it did in the 15th. The techniques of making pictures have hardly changed.
Howard Hodgkin

Making, Picture, Pictures

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Biography

Nationality: British

Type: Artist

Born: August 6, 1932

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Cite this Page: Citation

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