“For me, being a 'lady painter' was never an issue. I don't resent being a female painter. I don't exploit it. I paint.”

—  Helen Frankenthaler

Quote by John Gruen, in 'The Party's Over Now: Reminiscences of the fifties — New York's artists, writers, musicians, and their friends'; Viking Press, 1972 - ISBN 0-916366-54-5; as cited by by Grace Glueck, in 'New York Times', 2011
1970s - 1980s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "For me, being a 'lady painter' was never an issue. I don't resent being a female painter. I don't exploit it. I paint." by Helen Frankenthaler?
Helen Frankenthaler photo
Helen Frankenthaler 46
American artist 1928–2011

Related quotes

Johannes Warnardus Bilders photo

“Then - being in two minds - in my father's courtyard, I counted the buttons of my coat: soldier or painter, soldier, painter, soldier, painter.... the last button told me: painter. So it was decided by chance that I would become a painter”

Johannes Warnardus Bilders (1811–1890) painter from the Northern Netherlands

c. 1831
version in original Dutch (citaat van Johannes Warnardus Bilders, in Nederlands): Toen telde ik, op de binnenplaats mijns vaders in tweestrijd, de knoopen van mijn jas: soldaat of schilder, soldaat, schilder, soldaat, schilder.. ..de laatste knoop zei schilder, en zoo besliste het toeval, dat ik schilder zou worden [c. 1831].
J.W. Bilders was fighting as a Dutch volunteer in the Belgium Independents War against The Netherlands. 1830
Source: 1880's, Johannes Warnardus Bilders' (1887/1900), p. 78

“I make what it pleases me to make.... I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason. I intuitively paint flags.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Quote of Jasper Johns, as cited in Trend to the Anti-Art: Targets and Flags, Newsweek 51 no. 13, March 1958, p. 96
1950s

Norah Jones photo

“If I were a painter
I would paint my reverie
If that's the only way for you to be with me”

Norah Jones (1979) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

"Painter Song", Come Away with Me (2002)
Song lyrics

Lucian Freud photo

“I think half the point of painting a picture is that you don't know what will happen … that if painters did know what was going to happen they wouldn't bother to do it.”

Lucian Freud (1922–2011) British painter and engraver

Interview with Martin Gayford, Independent on Sunday 26 May 2002
Other

Maurice de Vlaminck photo

“The thought of becoming a painter never as much as occurred to me. I would have laughed out loud if someone had suggested that I choose painting as a career. To be a painter is not a business, no more than to be an artist, lover, racer, dreamer, or prizefighter. It is a gift of Nature, a gift..”

Maurice de Vlaminck (1876–1958) French painter

Quote of De Vlaminck; as cited in Vlaminck, Klaus G. Perls, The Hyperion Press, New York 1941, p. 51
To support his family of four, De Vlaminck had to find other means by which to earn a living, and ended up taking several other jobs, including working as a billiards players, a writer, a general worker, and even a cyclist
Quotes undated

Sina Mesdag-van Houten photo

“Without my husband I would never have become a painter, and without me he had probably not become a painter.”

Sina Mesdag-van Houten (1834–1909) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek

(original Dutch: citaat van Sientje Mesdag van Houten, in het Nederlands:) Zonder mijn man was ik nooit schilderes geworden, en zonder mij was hij waarschijnlijk geen schilder geworden.

Quote in the magazine 'Wereldkroniek', 21 April 1906; as cited on website Panorama Mesdag http://www.panorama-mesdag.nl/ontdek/mesdag/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5cO-hZzH3QIVDYmyCh0duwn1EAAYAiAAEgKqIPD_BwE

“I've always been told that I was a painter's painter... What does that mean?... That painters like my painting and the big wide world overlooks it, I suppose?... Well, I know... To me, it would have meant that - this is pre this new rage in buying and selling paintings - that, I think, that the formal values, like light, space, color, all those things that a painting is made up of, as well as the Jacob going up the ladder or Venus on the half shell or something [chuckles] would be what interested the painter. And perhaps the public would want the picture of the Christ child, so to speak. You know what I mean.”

Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) American painter

Tape number two, side A
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

Andy Warhol photo

“I never wanted to be a painter; I wanted to be a tap dancer.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist
John Constable photo

“I am anxious that the world should be inclined to look to painters for information about painting. I hope to show that ours is a regularly taught profession; that it is scientific as well as poetic; that imagination alone never did, and never can, produce works that are to stand by a comparison with realities;; and to show, by tracing the connecting links in the history of landscape painting, that no great painter was ever self-taught.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quote from 'The History of Landscape Painting,' first lecture, Royal Institution (26 May 1836), from notes taken by C.R. Leslie
1830s, his lectures History of Landscape Painting (1836)

“I've painted for a very long time, but I don't get tired or bored by it; I love to do it. If I don't paint one day, I don't feel well physically or mentally. My eyes bother me when I don't paint. But when I paint a full day, I feel satisfied and everything seems to be OK. I would never stop, never retire. I don't see how people can retire; I don't understand that. My brother Moses died while he was painting. He was actually working on a painting, and the last words he said were to the model: "Phoebe, don't frown."”

Raphael Soyer (1899–1987) American artist

Then he died. He worked to the very last minute.
As quoted in Paper Lanterns (Quotations from The Sun) p. 59.

Related topics