Frankenthaler Quotes & Sayings

As we have seen so clearly demonstrated in Europe, hate breeds hate and the vicious circle revolves with all its attending madness. — Emanuel Celler

You have to know how to use the accident, how to recognise it, how to control it, and ways to eliminate it so that the whole surface looks felt and born all at once. — Helen Frankenthaler

In the '50s Morris Louis and I were not known, David Smith and Helen Frankenthaler were not much known. — Kenneth Noland

I had the landscape in my arms as I painted it. I had the landscape in my mind and shoulder and wrist. — Helen Frankenthaler

There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about. — Helen Frankenthaler

In relations with people, as in art, if you always stick to style, manners, and what will work, and you're never caught off guard, then some beautiful experiences never happen. — Helen Frankenthaler

The question of sex will take care of itself. — Helen Frankenthaler

Whatever the medium, there is the difficulty, challenge, fascination and often productive clumsiness of learning a new method: the wonderful puzzles and problems of translating with new materials. — Helen Frankenthaler

I don't resent being a female painter. I don't exploit it. I paint. — Helen Frankenthaler

Every canvas is a journey all its own. — Helen Frankenthaler

Art has a will of its own. It has nothing to do with the taste of the moment or what's expected of you. That's a formula for dead art, or fashionable art. — Helen Frankenthaler

What has made it work, or what makes certain paintings successful or not, has to do with my being a painter and a thinking, feeling person, more than my sex, color, height, origin. — Helen Frankenthaler

God made everything out of nothing. But the nothingness shows through. — Paul Valery

A picture that is beautiful, or that comes off, or that works, looks as if it was all made at one stroke. — Helen Frankenthaler

I have always been concerned with painting that simultaneously insists on a flat surface and then denies it. — Helen Frankenthaler

The price for living the life I have
for any serious, devoted person, is that at times one must live alone, or feel alone. I think loneliness is associated in many people's minds when they think about success. — Helen Frankenthaler

We would sift through every inch of what it was that worked, or if it didn't, and wonder what was effective in it, in terms of paint, the subject matter, the size, the drawing. — Helen Frankenthaler

I'd rather risk an ugly surprise than rely on things I know I can do. — Helen Frankenthaler

I wanted things that I couldn't at times articulate. — Helen Frankenthaler

I follow the rules until I go against them all. — Helen Frankenthaler

Rynn Cormel had run the world during the Turn, his living charisma somehow crossing the boundaries of death to give his undead existence an uncanny mimicry of life. Every move was a careful study of causality. It was highly unusual for so young an undead vampire to be so good at mimicking having a soul. I figured it was because he was a politician and had had practice way before he died. — Kim Harrison

President George W. Bush, in his now-rare public appearances and interviews, still refuses to acknowledge he did anything to help Iran. But it doesn't really matter what he thinks. — Richard Engel

I've explored a variety of directions and themes over the years. But I think in my painting you can see the signature of one artist, the work of one wrist. — Helen Frankenthaler

The landscapes were in my arms as I did it. — Helen Frankenthaler

What concerns me when I work, is not whether the picture is a landscape, or whether it's pastoral, or whether somebody will see a sunset in it. What concerns me is - did I make a beautiful picture? — Helen Frankenthaler

One really beautiful wrist motion, that is synchronised with your head and heart, and you have it. It looks as if it were born in a minute. — Helen Frankenthaler

We're establishing a pattern here, Sara. You come, you go. — Christina Lauren

I am sure of the fire that runs through me. I am sure of the earth I stand on. And I am sure of you. — Elizabeth Hunter

There are many accidents that are nothing but accidents-and forget it. But there are some that were brought about only because you are the person you are ... you have the wherewithal, intelligence, and energy to recognize it and do something with it. — Helen Frankenthaler

A really good picture looks as if it's happened at once. It's an immediate image. — Helen Frankenthaler

There are no rules. Let the picture lead you where it must go. — Helen Frankenthaler

Every so often every artist feels, 'I'll never paint again. The muse has gone out the window.' In 1985, I hardly painted at all for three months, and it was agonizing. I looked at reproductions. I stared at Matisse. I stared at the Old Masters. I stared at the Quattrocento. And I thought to myself - Don't push it! If you try too hard to get at something, you almost push it away. — Helen Frankenthaler

I don't start with a color order, but find the colors as I go. — Helen Frankenthaler

What's this?" She pulled out a card and held it away from her face. "I can't read what it says." I took it from her and read it aloud.
1. Beeber Bifocal
2. Twenty Mile House
3. Bee
4. Your escape
Fourteen miracles to go. — Maria Semple