I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive.
If the affairs of the world were put in the hands of the screwball artists, it couldn’t be in a worse state than it is now !
Reality is fabricated out of desire.
I like contradictions. We have never attained the infinite variety and contradictions that exist in nature. Tomorrow I shall contradict myself. That is the one way I have of asserting my liberty, the real liberty one does not find as a member of society.
The complicated engines manufactured by men demand, if one really wants to use them, much calm. Ever since our love for machines replaced the love we used to have for our fellow man, catastrophes proceed to increase.
Is photography an art? There is no point in trying to find out if it is an art. Art is old-fashioned. We need something else.
Speaking of nudes, I have always had a great fondness for this subject, both in my paintings and in my photos, and I must admit, not for purely artistic reasons.
I am an economic person; I judge the amount of work involved with the amount of worth attained.
I am not going to be dictated to by the size of the camera. I use everything from an 8 x 10 to a 35-mm. But I don’t use these modern cameras which break down all the time !
One of the satisfactions of a genius is his will-power and obstinacy.
I paint when I cannot photograph.
Cut out the eye from a photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more. Attach the eye to the pendulum of a metronome and regulate the weight to suit the tempo desired. Keep going to the limit of endurance. With a hammer well-aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow.
I never knew what I was doing until I was done.
In the same spirit, when the automobile arrived, there were those that declared the horse to be the most perfect form of locomotion.
The tricks of today are the truths of tomorrow.
Thanks to my effort in the last 40 years, there has been more paper and film wasted.
Quote me as much as you like; as a matter of fact I don’t even mind if you misquote me !
An effort impelled by desire must also have an automatic or subconscious energy to aid its realization.
I have never painted a recent picture.
A certain amount of contempt for the material employed to express an idea is indispensable to the purest realization of this idea.
An original is a creation motivated by desire.