“When most Italian artists of my own generation were afraid to be too 'modern,' too 'international' in their style, not 'national' or 'imperial' enough, I was still left in peace, perhaps because I demanded so little recognition. My privacy was thus my protection and, in the eyes of the Grand Inquisitors of Italian art, I remained a provincial professor of etching, at the Fine Art Academy in Bologna.”

— Giorgio Morandi

In a 1960 interview; as quoted in Giorgio Morandi, 1890–1964, eds. Renato Miracco and Maria Christina Bandera, Exh. cat. Milan: Skira, 2008
Morandi claimed in the interview this position
1945 - 1964

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Giorgio Morandi28

Italian painter 1890–1964

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“My only source of instruction has always been the study of works, whether of the past or contemporary artists, which can offer us an answer to our questions if we formulate these properly... I would never be of much use as a guide or instructor, nor have I ever wanted to be one, even when I have been asked to undertake the job [still, Morandi was art professor - etchings - at the Art Academy of Bologna for many years].”

Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) Italian painter

the text of this interview was later examined by Morandi and approved in the English translation
interview with Edouard Roditi, in 'Dialogues in Art', 1960; as quoted in Morandi 1894 – 1964, published by Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, ed: M. C. Bandera & R. Miracco - 2008; p. 250
1945 - 1964

“I have been fortunate enough to lead.... an uneventful life. Only on very rare occasions have I ever left Bologna, my native city, and the surrounding province of Emilia. Only twice, for instance, have I been abroad... Besides, I speak only my native language, as you see, and read only Italian periodicals... When I was in my early twenties, my highest ambition was to go abroad study art in Paris.... the material difficulties involved were too great, and I was obliged to remain in Italy. Later I had too many responsibilities, with my teaching and my family [his sisters he lived with] and never managed to go abroad.”

Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) Italian painter

Source: 1945 - 1964, Interview, 1960, p. 106

“I never had difficulties with my students, for I was prepared for their pranks, because fortunately I had often been naughty myself. We frequently made tremendous fun at the Art Academy in The Hague... So I still had my own experience in this area fresh in my mind.”

Suze Robertson (1855–1922) Dutch painter

(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Suze Robertson:) Moeilijkheden met mijn leerlingen [o.a. op de Rotterdamse H.B.S. - waar ze met lesgeven begon - van 1876 tot 1882] heb ik nooit gehad, want ik was voorbereid op hun streken, omdat ik gelukkig zelf dikwijls ondeugend was geweest. Wat hadden we op de Haagsche Academie vaak 'n ontzettende pret gemaakt!. .Dus had ik mijn eigen ervaring op dit gebied nog frisch in 't geheugen.
Suze was teaching first in Rotterdam at the Dutch High School, from 1876 to 1882, and afterwards one year in Amsterdam, 1883; then she stopped teaching
Source: 1900 - 1922, Onder de Menschen: Suze Robertson' (1912), p. 30

“I do not believe that art must develop on national lines, but I am convinced that there never was and never will be an international art. There is and was French, German, Italian, and Flemish art. But I deny those specific definitions so fashionable with adepts of fascism which make of every country an hermetic cell from which all foreign artists are excluded. [shortly after the end of the German occupation]”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

quote, New York, early 1944; as cited in: Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 430
1940 - 1960

“The most irresistible compulsion for me is that of doubt. I have doubts about all, including my own doubtfulness. I believe little, and that not fully. Scepticism is for me not a "fine art" but an integral part of my existence.”

Karlheinz Deschner (1924–2014) German writer and activist

Am wenigsten widerstehen kann ich dem Zweifel. Ich bezweifle alles, selbst meinen Zweifel. Ich glaube wenig und auch das nicht ganz. Skepsis ist für mich keine der «schönen Künste », sondern Teil meiner Existenz. <br class="br"> deschner.info http://www.deschner.info/de/person/zitate.htm

“Art was what I originally started out to do and music came second at first. I had a year at art college but I left because it was too much like school. I give all my paintings away to people I like.”

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

Interview for Melody Maker with Chris Charlesworth (July 1970)

“My eyes are too shy to deceive me; because I am still young and fresh.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“On 11 October 1908, having worked for six years at my international magazine Poesia, in an attempt to free the Italian lyrical genius that was under sentence of death from its traditional and commercial fetters, I suddenly felt that articles, poetry and controversies were no longer enough. It was absolutely crucial to switch methods, get out into the streets, lay siege to theaters, and introduce the fisticuffs into the artistic struggle... My Italian blood raced faster when my lips coined out loud the word FUTURISM.
It was the new formula of Action-Art and a code of mental health. It was a youthful and innovative banner, anti-traditional, optimistic, heroic and dynamic, that had to be hoisted over the ruins of all attachment to the past.”

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) Italian poet and editor, founder of the Futurist movement

quote from 'Guerra sola igiene del mundo', in Edizione Futuriste di Poesia', Milan 1915; as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 21
1910's

“I always felt that my work hadn't much to do with art; my admirations for other art had very little room to show themselves in my work because I hoped that if I concentrated enough the intensity of scrutiny alone would force life into the pictures. I ignored the fact that art, after all, derives from art. Now I realize that this is the case.”

Lucian Freud (1922–2011) British painter and engraver

Said in conversation with Robert Hughes and quoted in Hughes' Lucian Freud: Paintings (1987) ISBN 0-500-27535-1, p. 14
Lucian Freud : Paintings (1987)

“My wish [c. 1911].... of compiling a book (a kind of Almanac) in which all the contributions should be written by artists. I dreamt primarily of painters and musicians. The ruinous separation of the arts from each other, and of 'Art' from folk-art and from children's art, the distinction between 'Art' and 'Ethnography' [folk-art].... the solid walls erected between phenomena that in my eyes were so closely related, even identical: in a word, the potentialities for synthesis left me no peace. It may well seem strange today [1930] that for a long time I could not find any co-workers or any means to promote this idea..”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

as quoted by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 102
1920 - 1930

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