British Artist Quotes

F I was an Optician, - I think that I would almost as willingly - Waltz blindfold and barefoot among 9 Red hot Ploughshares laid at unequal distances from each other, - as have All my Telescopes tried by that truly troublesome test a Fixed Star.

William Kitchiner

Jerusalem is all about a very special relationship between the ground and the sky. This work attempts to bring the two together.
- India-born artist sculpts landmark symbol for museum.

A death was more than an ending; it was like pulling a thread from a richly patterned cloth.

I like the philosophy of the sandwich, as it were. It typifies my attitude to life, really. It's all there, it's fun, it looks good, and you don't have to wash up afterwards.

Although the great revolution of 1793 changed the whole face of France both politically and socially, it failed to emancipate the twin arts of painting and literature. In each case one tradition was succeeded by another, and nearly forty years elapsed before the new spirit completely broke through the barriers set up by a past generation.

Wynford Dewhurst

Almost anything that can be praised or advocated has been put to some disgusting use. There is no principle, however immaculate, that has not had its compromising manipulator.

To make images is a way of ordering one's world, of exploring and understanding one's relationship to existence.... The images we make are often ahead of our understanding, but to say "yes" to a subject is also to have recognized, however dimly, a part of oneself; to live with that image, to accept its significance is perhaps to grow in understanding.

No theoretician, no writer on art, however interesting he or she might be, could be as interesting as Picasso. A good writer on art may give you an insight to Picasso, but, after all, Picasso was there first.

Well, if you knows of a better 'ole, go to it.

Bruce Bairnsfather

I'll thank thee when approaching death
Would quench life's feeble ember,
For thou wouldst even renew my breath
With thy sweet word 'Remember'!

Branwell Brontë

Please wash your hands before leaving the twentieth century.

Everywhere I look and most of the time I look, I see photographs.

Pray for the repose of his soul. He was so tired.

Frederick Rolfe

I make all this stuff in the studio, but I also work on these white elephants — like House or Untitled Monument — things that are incredibly ambitious, take an awful long time to do, involve a lot of controversy, an awful lot of people, and don't make any money particularly, but it's just because I need to make them.

Rachel Whiteread

In lang, lang days o' simmer,
When the clear and cloudless sky
Refuses ae weep drap o' rain
To Nature parched and dry,
The genial night, wi' balmy breath,
Gars verdue, spring anew,
An' ilka blade o' grass
Keps its ain drap o' dew.

James Ballantine

It's just a penis, it's just a bit of flesh, just this one organ, people think makes you superior to another sex.

We are here to stir things up. Even people that hate us have to admit that we've already succeeded in doing that. Love Frankie or hate it - that's what we want - a strong reaction.

With languages, you can move from one social situation to another. With languages, you are at home anywhere.

You're going out a youngster but you've got to come back a star.

Photography, because it stops the flow of life, is always flirting with death.

After twenty annual visits, I am still surprised each time I return to see this giant asparagus bed of alabaster and rose and green skyscrapers.

This century has needed witnesses more than it has needed artists. The camera asserts what it has seen. The artists are just looking.

How then can the curious drawer watch, and as it were catch these lovely graces, witty smilings, and those stolen glances which suddenly like lightning pass, and another countenance taketh place, except to behold and very well note and conceit to like.

Nicholas Hilliard

John asked me to dance and I nearly died. Bingo! I then amazed myself by being very cool, calm and collected outwardly-inside I was out of this world. The dance was slow and smoochy. I was aloof and John, I think, was slightly embarrassed. It was all very painful and beautiful at the same time. The remaining students were looking on with puzzled expressions at such an unlikely combination.

Everyone has a certain difficulty in growing up, even my children, although I've been a good mother. I'm still not grown up in some ways compared with other people I know.

Angelica Garnett