20th-century Sculptor Quotes

The most pleasurable thing in the world, for me, is to see something and then translate how I see it.

Ellsworth Kelly

The great artist is conscious of the talent and power he possesses otherwise he would not see his faults and so would not be able to improve.

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

Chaos can be structured as non-chaos. That we know from Jackson Pollock.

Who is an artist? I say we take a title. No one gives it to us. We make our lives.

Louise Nevelson

The artist may rightly venture the opinion that he does not convey ideas, does not preach, nor that he intents to convert people by using mass communication techniques... Better than handing out all kinds of wise advice, he could show life itself; he could awake forces lying dormant in everybody, he could launch an invitation to create direct and personal experiences.

Another difficult thing that I experience is when after such a year of activity I have to empty my studio – completely. And I have found that this part only gets harder. You might think it gets easier, but I really just find it gets harder.

Why have our standards fallen so low? Why do we have all these ugly things which nobody needs? Industrial manufacture and new materials have led to truly unlimited possibilities of forms. There are no longer any natural constraints which depend on materials such as wood and stone. We simply manufacture everything that is technically possible and lack new structures on which to base our decisions.

I remember one day when Juan Gris told me about a bunch of grapes he had seen in a painting by Picasso. The next day these grapes appeared in a painting by Gris, this time in a bowl; and the day after, the bowl appeared in a painting by Picasso.

Jacques Lipchitz

About the fearful sphere which we inhabit, whose centre may be calculated and whose circumference is physically established, there spin metaphors whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference shows itself only through holes in the dark.

The power and force of stone reside in its mass, its weight, and its density.

I like Francis Bacon best, because Francis Bacon has terrific problems, and he knows that he is not going to solve them, but he knows also that he can escape from day to day and stay alive, and he does that because his work gives him a kick.

Louise Bourgeois

People like me, who care about printing, constitute the tiniest lunatic fringe in the nation.