I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that feeling into painting.

If people knew what Matisse, supposedly the painter of happiness, had gone through, the anguish and tragedy he had to overcome to manage to capture that light which has never left him, if people knew all that, they would also realize that this happiness, this light, this dispassionate wisdom which seems to be mine, are sometimes well-deserved, given the severity of my trials.

The portrait is one of the most curious art forms. It demands special qualities in the artist, and an almost total kinship with the model.

There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.

When I put a green, it is not grass. When I put a blue, it is not the sky.

My pictures are made up of four or five colors that collide with one another.

Colours have their own distinctive beauty that you have to preserve, just as in music you try to preserve sounds. It is a question of organization, of finding the arrangement that will keep the beauty and freshness of the colour