Pollock Quotes

• I've had a period of drawing on canvas in black - with some of my early images coming thru -, think the non-objectivists will find them disturbing - and the kids who think it simple to splash a 'Pollock' out.

  Jackson Pollock

  Kids, Simple, Thinking

  Jackson Pollock, Francis V. O'Connor, Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston, Mass.) (1980). “Jackson Pollock: the black pourings, 1951-1953”

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• In response to the question, 'How do you know when you're finished?' Pollock replied, 'How do you know when you're finished making love?

  Jackson Pollock

  Making Love, Response, Knows

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• Chaos can be structured as non-chaos. That we know from Jackson Pollock.

  Eva Hesse

  Chaos, Knows

  Eva Hesse, Nicholas Serota, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Kestner-Gesellschaft (1979). “Eva Hesse: sculpture : [catalog of an exhibition held at] Whitechapel Art Gallery, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Kestner-Gesellschaft”

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• Pollock was terrific. I think he freed himself of all kinds of worry about this world. Ran around and dripped, and then he managed to express ecstasy.

  Agnes Martin

  Art, Thinking, Worry

  "Perfection Is in the Mind". Interview with Joan Simon, August 21, 1995.

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• The significant element that is common to Rivera, Siqueros, Picasso, Pollock, Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo is the expression of pain.

  Billy Cannon

  Pain, Expression, Suffering

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• I was a student at Harvard, and that's where I learned about so-called avant-garde music. Jackson Pollock, abstract expressionism and painting were well known at this time.

  Henry Flynt

  Artist, Avant Garde, Students

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• Every so often, a painter has to destroy painting. Cezanne did it, Picasso did it with Cubism. Then Pollock did it. He busted our idea of a picture all to hell. Then there could be new paintings again.

  Willem de Kooning

  Ideas, Cezanne, Painting

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• I'm interested in Jackson Pollock's kind of art, where art is beautiful, but it's nothing, and yet it's incredible.

  Taylor Swift

  Beautiful, Art, Kind

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• It's impossible in our postmodern era for anyone to be original - for anybody to do what Jackson Pollock did.

  Irving Sandler

  Eras, Impossible, Modernism

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• I wanted my work to be seen for free in a public space, I want to be up there with Pollock and de Kooning, one of the big boys.

  Stella Vine

  Boys, Space, Want

  "Will These Tragic Celebs Bring Art a New Audience?" by Maev Kennedy, www.theguardian.com. July 14, 2007.

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• Decades ago, Gerhard Richter found a painterly philosopher's stone. Like Jackson Pollock before him, he discovered something that had been in painting all along, always overlooked or discounted.

  Jerry Saltz

  Stones, Philosopher, Painting

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• If the choice is between buying another building or a Pollock, I'd go for the Pollock every time.

  Damien Hirst

  Choices, Buying, Building

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• I think we're in an age where artists really have an incredible range of materials at their command now. They can use almost anything from household items - Jackson Pollock used house paint - to, you know, advanced computer systems, to good old oil paint and acrylic paint.

  Bill Viola

  Thinking, Artist, Oil

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• In the late 30s the name Pollock was totally unknown and unheard of.

  Lee Krasner

  Names, Late, Unheard

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• I know the Pollock novel. Read it last year and liked it. Daniel Woodrell is awesome. I especially like the book Winter's Bone, and the film made from it. Larry Brown is terrific, all his work, but for me Joe in particular, also a good film, but a much better novel.

  Joe R. Lansdale

  Book, Winter, Years

  Source: thequietus.com

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• The big shock of my life was Abstract Expressionism - Pollock, de Kooning, those guys. It changed my work. I was an academically trained student, and suddenly you could pour paint, smear it on, broom it on!

  LeRoy Neiman

  Guy, Students, Paint

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• And that Newman wasn't, and yet to me Pollock is just as radical and unlike Expressionism as Newman.

  Donald Judd

  Expressionism, Radical, Newman

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• It can be a work by Mondrian, a piece of music by Schönberg or Mozart, a painting by Leonardo, Barnett Newman or also Jackson Pollock. That's beautiful to me. But also nature. A person can be beautiful as well. And beauty is also defined as 'untouched'. Indeed, that's an ideal: that we humans are untouched and therefore beautiful.

  Gerhard Richter

  Beautiful, Art, Pieces

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• Pollock looks unusual and radical even now.

  Donald Judd

  Looks, Unusual, Radical

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• The moment of creative impulse is what an artist gives you. You look at a Pollock, and it can't give you the tools to do a painting like that yourself, but in doing the work, Pollock shares with you the moment of creative impulse that drove him to do that work.

  Patti Smith

  Artist, Giving, Creative

  "Patti Smith on Art". Interview with Anthony DeCurtis, www.pbs.org. December 30, 2009.

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• Pollock was well known, certainly, but for all the wrong reasons. He was known as much for being wild and unconventional in his working methods as for being a great artist.

  Kenneth Noland

  Artist, Unconventional, Reason

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• Part of the strength of Pollock and Rothko's art, in fact, is this doubt as to whether art may be there at all.

  John Ashbery

  Art, Poetry, Doubt

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• Jackson Pollock said once, "I don't really feel that many people in this world are alive." He said, "That's why I like you, Tom. You're alive."

  Tom Robbins

  I Like You, People, Alive

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• The 10 or 12 artists I have known really well all my life are at least as competitive as professional athletes. They may express it in slightly different terms, but you look at the Jackson Pollocks et al., and they are as interested in wall space in the galleries as Joe Montana is in the percentage of completed passes. So the notion that symphonic conducting, or stage play, or pure art, is not a competitive business is real bullshit.

  Tom Peters

  Art, Wall, Business

  "The Peters Principles". Interview with Virginia Postrel, reason.com. October 1997.

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• Who among us has not gazed thoughtfully and patiently at a painting of Jackson Pollock and thought "What a piece of crap?"

  Rob Long

  Pieces, Painting, Crap

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