“By nature I am a skeptic. I don't dare to think my paintings are great. I can't understand the arrogance of someone saying, 'I have created a big, important work.' I want to reject this pathetic behavior, this notion of the heroic artist. Pollock, Barnett Newman, Franz Kline, their heroism derived from the climate of their time, but we do not have this climate… On the other hand, you do need feelings like they had to some extent. So I am afraid there must be a side of me close to those feelings. Those absurd feelings.”

— Gerhard Richter

after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "By nature I am a skeptic. I don't dare to think my paintings are great. I can't understand the arrogance of someone say…" by Gerhard Richter?

Gerhard Richter 96

German visual artist, born 1932 1932

Related quotes

“I am glad I have that artistic life in me... [I'm] a nobody in my field of art... I don't overestimate myself at all, and that's why I can't get that comfort from my work [landscape painting], which the Great [artists] have in their field of art. What else to say! 50 years after my death!! I laughed about it. Do you think they will remember me after only one year? [after her death] Dear heaven! No, that is really my least concern.”

Marie Bilders-van Bosse (1837–1900) painter from the Netherlands

translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat uit een brief van Marie Bilders-van Bosse, in het Nederlands:) Ik ben blij dat ik dat artistieke leven in mij heb.. ..[ik ben] een prul op mijn gebied.. ..Ik overschat mijzelven niemendal, en daarom kan ik uit mijn werk [landschap-schilderen] niet dien troost putten die de Grooten op een gebied daaruit halen. En verder! 50 jaar na mijn dood!! Ik heb er om gelachen. Denk je dat ze één jaar daarna nog aan mij zullen denken? Lieve hemel! Nee, dat is mijn minste zorg.
Quote from Marie Bilders-van Bosse in her letter from The Hague, 29 March 1896, to her friend Cornelia M. Beaujon-van Foreest; as cited in Marie Bilders-van Bosse 1837-1900 – Een Leven voor Kunst en Vriendschap, Ingelies Vermeulen & Ton Pelkmans; Kontrast ( ISBN 978-90-78215-54-7), 2008, p. 29
Marie wrote her letter shortly after a quarrel with her friend Cornelia

“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
undated quotes

“I feel the conflict still exists in me – but not causing me any difficulty in working, as it did immediately after returning from Italy [in 1925]. In fact I ask myself is this [the] conflict what makes things happen? For it seems to me now that this conflict between the excitement & great impression I got from Mexican sculpture & the love & sympathy I felt for Italian art, represents two opposing sides in me, the 'tough' & the 'tender', & that many other artists have had the same two conflicting sides in their natures.... and really I see no difficulty in appreciating both sides & finding them in the same artist. Perhaps an obvious & continuous synthesis will eventually derive in my own work – I can’t say – I can only work as I feel & believe at the time I do the work.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

in 'Undated notes' 1950; as quoted in The Art of Henry Moore, Will Grohmann, Thames and Hudson, London 1960, n.p.
1940 - 1955

“I am a great artist and I know it. It's because of what I am that I have endured so much suffering, so as to pursue my vocation, otherwise I would consider myself a rogue — which is what many people think I am, for that matter. Oh well, what difference does it make. What upsets me the most is not so much the poverty as the things that perpetually get in the way of my art, which I cannot carry out the way I feel and which I would carry out if it weren't for the poverty that is like a straitjacket. You tell me I am wrong to stay away from the artist[ic] center. No, I am right; I've known for a long time what I am doing and why I am doing it. My artistic center is in my brain and nowhere else, and I am strong because I am never thrown off-course by other people and because I do what is in me.”

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist artist

Original: Je suis un grand artiste et je le sais. C'est parce que je le suis que j'ai tellement enduré de souffrances. Pour poursuivre ma voie, sinon je me considérerai comme un brigand. Ce que je suis du reste pour beaucoup de personnes. Enfin, qu'importe! Ce qui me chagrine le plus c'est moins la misère que les empêchements perpétuels à mon art que je ne puis faire comme je le sens et comme je pourais le faire sans la misère qui me lie les bras. Tu me dis que j'ai tort de rester éloigné du centre artistique. Non, j'ai raison, je sais depuis longtemps ce que je fais et pourquoi je le fais. Mon centre artistique est dans mon cerveau et pas ailleurs et je suis fort parce que je ne suis jamais dérouté par les autres et je fais ce qui est en moi.
Source: 1890s - 1910s, The Writings of a Savage (1996), pp. 53-54: Quote in a letter to his wife, Mette (Tahiti, March 1892)