“Today I painted my first plain air portrait at the clay pit, a little blond and blue-eyed girl. The way the little thing stood in the yellow sand was simply beautiful – a bright and shimmering thing to see. It made my heart leap. Painting people is indeed more beautiful than painting a landscape. I suppose you can notice that I am dead-tired, after this long day of hard work, cant you? But inside I am so peaceful and happy..”

— Paula Modersohn-Becker

in a letter to her mother, from Worpswede, August 1897; as quoted in Paula Modersohn-Becker, The Letters and Journals by Paula Modersohn-Becker, eds. Günter Busch, Liselotte von Reinken, Arthur S. Wensinger, Carole Clew Hoey - Northwestern University Press, 1998, p. 79
1897

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Paula Modersohn-Becker 55

German artist 1876–1907

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“I worked hard the whole day, so that I am very tired now. Yesterday I made the sketch of the castle [in Vorden] on the canvas and today I painted the sky, the whole day long. I made the composition even more simple by leaving out the creel; the air is painted in the spirit of the [ Swartzwald [? ], but much more stronger and sadder. I hope to show the people how beautiful, how profoundly poetical the castle [is].... please save this thumbnail-sketch [drawn in the letter, on the same paper] and also my previous letter. Who knows the descendants - when reading them, and looking at the sketch - will say: Look, it was in this way how Bilder's very lovely painting was discussed at the House 't Velde, and how it came into life in Vorden. Good-by, my dear Lady..”

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

translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Johannes Warnardus Bilders' brief, in het Nederlands:) Ik heb den gehelen dag hart gewerkt. Zoo dat ik erg moede ben. gisteren had ik de schets van t kasteel [in Vorden] op t' doek gebracht en vandaag heb ik de gehelen dag aan de lucht geschildert , ik heb de compositie nog eenvoudiger gemaakt door de vischkaar weg te laten; de lucht is in de geest van t [Swartzwald[?], maar nog veel sterker en droeviger, ik hoop de menschen te laten zien, hoe schoon, hoe diep poetisch, het kasteel bi.. ..bewaar de krabbel èn ook mijn voorgaande brief, wie weet als het nageslacht, die dan leest, en de krabbel ziet of ze dan niet zeggen, zie op deze wijze kwam dit schoonste schilderij van Bilders in t leven, t werd op ’t Velde besproken, en te Vorden in 't leven geroepen, dag zeer geliefde juffrouw..
J.W. Bilders, in his letter [including a sketch by pen of the landscape with the castle, seen from the garden of the hotel where he stayed] to Georgina van Dijk van 't Velde, from Vorden, 1 Sept. 1868; from an excerpt of the letter https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/excerpts/751236 in the RKD-Archive, The Hague
1860's + 1870's

“To achieve the structure it takes a damn long time, so my paintings are always in work for a very long time—sometimes a year. Not that I work on them every day. I will have them, and then come back to them after a year, and also return intermittently. It’s not easily done. I am not able to do “one, two, a painting.” I try to do it very quickly, but it doesn’t work with me. I simply can’t do it. Very often people look and say, 'Ah, fantastic! That’s a beautiful painting.'”

Per Kirkeby (1938–2018) Danish artist

But the moment they are out the door I start working on it. I rework it.
In a talk with Kosinski, before 'Per Kirkeby at the Phillips', in The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. January, 2013
Kirkeby spoke to exhibition co-curator Dorothy Kosinski about the necessity of time in the development of a painting.
1995 and later

“My painting does not come from the easel. I hardly ever stretch my canvas before painting. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the method of the Indian sand painters of the West.”

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) American artist

Quote from 'Possibilities' Vol. 1, no 1, winter 1947-48, p. 79; as cited in 'Jackson Pollock: is he the greatest living painter in the United States?', in 'Life' (8 August 1949), pp. 42-45
1940's

“Hugo [Claus], Now you should see my recent works. A drawing in ink, three pencil drawings and two sketches in oil-paint: a still-life and a landscape in the strongest colors you can imagine. I still have to work on the landscape, but I really think it will be the best of my paintings till now.... but the happiest thing is, I have acquired much more freedom.”

Roger Raveel (1921–2013) painter

version in original Flemish (citaat van Roger Raveel, in het Vlaams): Hugo [Claus], nu zoudt U eens moeten mijn laatste werk zien, een pentekening, drie potloodtekeningen en twee studies met olieverf: een stilleven en een landschap in de hevigste kleuren die Ge U kunt indenken. Aan dat landschap moet ik nog werken maar ik denk dat het mijn beste werk zal zijn, van mijn schilderwerk, en drie tekeningen vind ik mijn beste maar het gelukkigste is dat ik een veel grotere vrijheid heb verworven.
Quote of Raveel, in a letter to his friend Hugo Claus, from Machelen aan de Leie, 20-24 March 1948; as cited in Hugo Claus, Roger Raveel; Brieven 1947 – 1962, ed. Katrien Jacobs, Ludion; Gent Belgium, 2007 - ISBN 978-90-5544-665-0, p. 50 (translation: Fons Heijnsbroek)
1945 - 1960

“I find that I have painted my life, things happening in my life — without knowing. After painting the Shell and shingle [c, 1926] many times, I did a misty landscape of the mountain across the lake, and the mountain became the shape of the shingle — the mountain I saw out my window, the shingle on the table in my room. I did not notice that they were alike for a long time after they were painted.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

1970s, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)

“In 1946 what I call my 'Little Image' began breaking through this [former] gray matter of mine. I felt fantastic relief that something was beginning to happen after all this time when there was nothing, nothing, nothing... The canvas is down on a floor or table and I am working out of a tiny can. In other words, I have to hold the paint so I can move it. But I wouldn’t have been using Duco [industrial paint, like Willem de Kooning did]. My paint would always have been oil and I could get the consistency of a thick pouring quality in it by squeezing it into a can and cutting it with turp [turpetine] – the way I use paint today... The only thing I can say with absolute assurance is that my 'Little Image' work starts about 1946 and ends in 1949.”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

Source: Art Talk, Conversations with 15 woman artists 1975, p. 77.

“I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.”

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter

Quoted in Time Magazine, "Mexican Autobiography" (27 April 1953)
1946 - 1953

“When I feel tired and discouraged and I lie down on the sofa, then I think of the simplest thing I can – a piece of string – and I go in it and paint it. That's the way to keep painting – to create something inside that makes you want to recreate it.”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

1942 - 1948, A Painter in a Glass House' (1948)

“Father was a beautiful person, Otherwise I couldn't have paint him like that [Jopie points to the portrait of his father in the living-room, hanging next to his mother's]. Painted in seven hours. On a Saturday. About three months before my mother had died. Three times [during the painting-session] he stood up: 'Are you getting ready, finally?' The way I am talking about them is just how you see them here. He was a skipper of mud, afterwards a farmer.”

Jopie Huisman (1922–2000) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jopie Huisman, in het Nederlands: Vader was ook een juweel van een mannetje. Anders kun je 'm toch ook niet zo schilderen. [Jopie wijst naar het portret van zijn vader dat in de huiskamer hangt, naast dat van zijn moeder] In zeven uren gemaakt. Op een zaterdag. Toen was m'n moeder een maand of drie dood. Drie keer is ie overeind geweest: 'Ben je al 'ns een keer klaar?' Zoals ik over ze praat, zo zie je ze daar hangen. Het was een modderschippertje, later boer.
Mens & Gevoelens: Jopie Huisman', 1993

“I can't paint the way they want me to paint and they know that too.
Of course you will say that I ought to be practical and ought to try and paint the way they want me to paint. Well, I will tell you a secret. I have tried and I have tried very hard, but I can't do it. I just can't do it! And that is why I am just a little crazy.”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

As quoted in R.v.R. : Being an Account of the Last Years and the Death of One Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn (1930) by Hendrik Willem van Loon
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Paula Modersohn-Becker 55

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