“There is a train track in the history of art that goes way back to Mesopotamia. It skips the whole Orient, the Mayas and American Indians. Duchamp is on it. Cézanne is on it. Picasso and the Cubists are on it; Giacometti, Mondrian and so many, many more – whole civilizations.”
About This Quote
Talk delivered at Studio 35, 8th Street, New York, Autumn 1949.
More from Willem de Kooning
“The past does not influence me; I influence it.”
“I'm not interested in 'abstracting' or taking things out or reducing painting. I paint…”
“I don't think painters have particularly bright ideas. [What do they have?] I guess their…”
“Everything that passes me I can see only a little of, but I am always looking. And I see…”