Frank Auerbach Quotes

• To put down an ideogram of a table so that people will recognize it as a table is not the work of a painter, but to sense it for a moment as a magic carpet with a leg hanging down at each corner is the beginning of a painter's imagination.

  Frank Auerbach

  Art, People, Imagination

  Frank Auerbach, Hayward Gallery, Fruit Market Gallery, Arts Council of Great Britain (1978). “Frank Auerbach: catalogue of an exhibtion held at the Hayward Gallery, London, 4 May - 2 July 1978, Fruit Market Gallery, Edinburgh, 15 July 12 August, 1978”

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• I'm hoping to make a new thing for the world that remains in the mind like a new species of living thing.

  Frank Auerbach

  Artist, Mind, World

  Frank Auerbach, Hayward Gallery, Fruit Market Gallery, Arts Council of Great Britain (1978). “Frank Auerbach: catalogue of an exhibtion held at the Hayward Gallery, London, 4 May - 2 July 1978, Fruit Market Gallery, Edinburgh, 15 July 12 August, 1978”

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• It seems to me madness to wake up in the morning and do something other than paint, considering that one may not wake up the following morning.

  Frank Auerbach

  Morning, Artist, Wake Up

  Frank Auerbach, Hayward Gallery, Fruit Market Gallery, Arts Council of Great Britain (1978). “Frank Auerbach: catalogue of an exhibtion held at the Hayward Gallery, London, 4 May - 2 July 1978, Fruit Market Gallery, Edinburgh, 15 July 12 August, 1978”

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• In addition to the artistic influences, I am influenced by my current private life, my feelings about it and my energy level and state of health.

  Frank Auerbach

  Feelings, Energy, Levels

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• I go out each morning and draw. I can't really start a painting in the morning until I've done a drawing.

  Frank Auerbach

  Morning, Drawing, Done

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• Real style is not having a program - it's how one behaves in a crisis.

  Frank Auerbach

  Real, Style, Program

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• Ideally, one should have more material than one can possibly cope with.

  Frank Auerbach

  Artist, Should Have, Should

  Frank Auerbach, Hayward Gallery, Fruit Market Gallery, Arts Council of Great Britain (1978). “Frank Auerbach: catalogue of an exhibtion held at the Hayward Gallery, London, 4 May - 2 July 1978, Fruit Market Gallery, Edinburgh, 15 July 12 August, 1978”

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• Falsehood always punishes itself.

  Frank Auerbach

  Lying, Falsehood

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• I think that the very earliest influence was a horror of having to work in a bank or an office, a desire for a free and creative life.

  Frank Auerbach

  Thinking, Office, Creative

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• I never work with an audience - I can't do this. The process depends on the highest degree of nervous concentration.

  Frank Auerbach

  Degrees, Nervous, Process

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• I destroy things every day in the act of working and often recall a picture I had considered finished in order to rework it.

  Frank Auerbach

  Order, Rework, Recalls

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• If you pass something every day and it has a little character, it begins to intrigue you.

  Frank Auerbach

  Character, Littles, Intrigue

  "Surfaces and depths" by John O'Mahony, www.theguardian.com. September 15, 2001.

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• The unity in any painter's work arises from the fact that a person, brought to a desperate situation, will behave in a certain way... style.

  Frank Auerbach

  Artist, Desperate Situations, Unity

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• Garden work consists much more in uprooting weeds than in planting seed. This applies also to teaching.

  Frank Auerbach

  Weed, Teaching, Garden

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• I don't think Seurat would have been aware of the dots - he would have been aware of what he was trying to do. The dots were an instrument.

  Frank Auerbach

  Thinking, Trying, Dots

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