Barnett Newman Quotes

Barnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters. His paintings are existential in tone and content, explicitly composed with the intention of communicating a sense of locality, presence, and contingency. Wikipedia  

✵ 29. January 1905 – 4. July 1970
Barnett Newman: 25   quotes 0   likes

Famous Barnett Newman Quotes

Barnett Newman Quotes about painting

“The problem of a painting is physical and metaphysical the same as I think life is physical and metaphysical.”

Source: 1960 - 1970, Interview with David Sylvester 2. Spring 1965, p. 259

“Aesthetics is for painting as Ornithology is for the birds.”

Quote of Newman (1952), as cited in: C. Greig Crysler, ‎Stephen Cairns, ‎Hilde Heynen (2012). The SAGE Handbook of Architectural Theory. p. 123
1950 - 1960

Barnett Newman Quotes about the world

“My idea was that with an automatic move you could create a world [Newman's comment on his series small mixed media works, 1944].”

1940 - 1950
Source: Abstract Expressionism, David Anfam, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London 1990, p. 112

“Surrealism, is interested in a dream world that will penetrate the human psyche.”

Source: 1940 - 1950, The Plasmic Image 1. 1943-1945, p. 140

Barnett Newman Quotes

“I think every man is an artist.”

Quote of Barnett Newman in: American Artists, a 1966 TV Show on New York's educational television network; as cited by Caroline A. Jones (1998) in Machine in the Studio: Constructing the Postwar American Artist. p. 84
1960 - 1970
Context: Does a man want to be an artist? Is it like he wants to be a priest, or a lawyer? Is the artist that kind of profession? Or, as I once actually wrote, I think every man is an artist. An artist is a matter of my birthright... what I'd like to be is a man in the world. And I paint in order to do a painting, not to... make myself into a so-called artist... I'm impelled to do something, to say something.

“All artists whether primitive or sophisticated, have been involved in the handling of chaos.”

Source: 1940 - 1950, The Plasmic Image 1. 1943-1945, p. 139

“Let us, rather, like the Greek writers, tear the tragedy to shreds.”

in Newman's essay of 1945, as quoted in: Abstract Expressionism, Davind Anfam, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London 1990, p. 20
1940 - 1950

“.. the terror to expect. Hiroshima showed it to us. The terror has indeed become as real as life.”

Quote from Newman's essay of 1945, as cited in: Abstract Expressionism, Davind Anfam, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London 1990, p. 20
1940 - 1950

“Painting, like passion, is a living voice, which, when I hear it, I must let it speak, unfettered.”

Barnett Newman, in The New American Painting, exhibition catalogue May 28 - Sept 8. 1959; republished in: Barnett Newman, John Philip O'Neill. (1992). Barnett Newman: Selected Writings and Interviews. p. 160
1950 - 1960

“Consequently if our work embodies these beliefs, it must insult anyone who is spiritually attuned to interior decoration; pictures for the home…”

Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb in thier common 'Manifesto', New York Times, 13 June 13, 1943; republished in: Stella Paul (1999), Twentieth-Century Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 159
1940 - 1950

Similar authors

Andy Warhol photo
Andy Warhol 133
American artist
Salvador Dalí photo
Salvador Dalí 117
Spanish artist
Khalil Gibran photo
Khalil Gibran 111
Lebanese artist, poet, and writer
Bob Dylan photo
Bob Dylan 523
American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist
Bruce Lee photo
Bruce Lee 193
Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and f…
Barbra Streisand photo
Barbra Streisand 5
American singer, actress, writer, film producer, and direct…
Kurt Cobain photo
Kurt Cobain 158
American musician and artist
Michael Jackson photo
Michael Jackson 110
American singer, songwriter and dancer
Robert Frost photo
Robert Frost 265
American poet
Frank Zappa photo
Frank Zappa 129
American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and fil…