Thomas Hoving Quotes & Sayings

The only enemy of art is taste. — Thomas Hoving

If you don't work yourself up into a fever of greed and covetousness in an art museum, you're just not doing the job. — Thomas Hoving

Art happens when anyone in the world takes any kind of material and fashions it into a deliberate statement. — Thomas Hoving

My address book of dealers and private collectors, smugglers and fixers, agents, runners and the peculiar assortment of art hangers-on was longer than anyone else's in the field. — Thomas Hoving

No matter how hard I tried to popularize, I never cheapened a great work of art. — Thomas Hoving

Parks are works of art just as a painting or sculpture is. — Thomas Hoving

My heavily-cleverly disguised low self-regard manifested itself in my constant showing off, my addiction for publicity, and my intolerable 'me-me-me' attitudes and actions. But it's done, isn't it? And no one can really change, can they? And, hey, it has been a lot of fun being the life-long irresponsible, snarky, nasty art scamp. — Thomas Hoving

To appreciate a work of art, is it okay to like what you like, and the heck with the art critics and experts? Absolutely. — Thomas Hoving

Even if virtually anything can be art, there are levels of quality. — Thomas Hoving

The definition of art has to shift whenever an innovator appears. — Thomas Hoving

Art is sexy! Art is money-sexy! Art is money-sexy-social-climbing-fantastic! — Thomas Hoving

With each change of definition in art, something considered non-art or bad art by a previous generation is suddenly acceptable. — Thomas Hoving

The definition of art has changed almost every day since the first artist created the first work at least fifty thousand years ago ... — Thomas Hoving

Great art should be shown with great excitement. — Thomas Hoving

There have been countless changes in the long history of art. The most significant have been brought about by the genius of a single artist. — Thomas Hoving

I have heard of you- a kind of revolutionary. Hard to be a revolutionary in the deadly museum business. — Thomas Hoving

The 'Artful Tommy' will never change - and perhaps shouldn't. — Thomas Hoving

When I became director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was stodgy, gray, run by elitists. I said, 'Hey, let's kick the thing around.' I wanted to attract young people to the museum. I said, 'Make it hospitable. I want them to come. I want them to make dates, pick up girls, pick up boys - either way; I don't care.' — Thomas Hoving

Utopia would mean a park - some large, some small - every four or five blocks. — Thomas Hoving