The artist has to be something like a whale swimming with his mouth wide open, absorbing everything until he has what he really needs.

When I conjure these memories, they are of the present to me, because after all, the artist is a kind of enchanter in time.

You put down one color and it calls for an answer. You have to look at it like a melody.

Painting is the act of discovery and you're constantly enlarging your horizon or finding yourself every time you paint.

The most difficult object in painting is yourself because you're always at issue

The artist has to be something like a whale swimming with his mouth wide open, absorbing everything until he has what he really needs.

It was not my aim to paint about the Negro in America in terms of propaganda. It is to depict the life of my people as I know it, passionately and dispassionately as Brueghel.