Roy Lichtenstein Quotes

“A number of artists have done things with Mickey Mouse – including Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol. He's such an American symbol, and such an anti-art symbol.”

“Actually, I love the Abstract Expressionists – or I like the ones I like, anyway.”

“All my art is in some way about other art, even if the other art is cartoons.”

“Art doesn't transform. It just plain forms.”

“Color is crucial in painting, but it is very hard to talk about. There is almost nothing you can say that holds up as a generalization, because it depends on too many factors: size, modulation, the rest of the field, a certain consistency that color has with forms, and the statement you're trying to make.”

“Everybody has called Pop Art 'American' painting, but it's actually industrial painting.”

“I don't have big anxieties. I wish I did. I'd be much more interesting.”

“I don't know why you'd want to say your work comes from nature, because art is related to perception, not nature. All abstract artists try to tell you that what they do comes from nature, and I'm always trying to tell you that what I do is completely abstract. We're both saying something we want to be true.”

“I don't think that I'm over his influence but they probably don't look like Picassos; Picasso himself would probably have thrown up looking at my pictures.”

“I don't think that my art isn't serious. I think the subjects are not serious, or my treatments of the subjects are not serious. But then, I'm also putting down subject, because like the abstract expressionists, I don't think the subject is important.”

“I don't think there is any question that Picasso is the greatest figure of the 20th century.”

“I like to pretend that my art has nothing to do with me.”

“I suppose I would still prefer to sit under a tree with a picnic basket rather than under a gas pump, but signs and comic strips are interesting as subject matter.”

“I take a cliche and try to organize its forms to make it monumental. The difference is often not great, but it is crucial.”

“I think art was the one thing my high school didn't give. And I think that was probably one reason why I was interested in it.”

“I think there's the apparent lack of subtlety and sort of make-believe anti-sensibility connected with American art. I think this is a style, and it does relate to our culture, and I think it would be anachronistic maybe to pretend to be involved with subtle changes and modulations and things like that, because it's really not part of America.”

“I think we're much smarter than we were. Everybody knows that abstract art can be art, and most people know that they may not like it, even if they understand there's another purpose to it.”

“I think you go nuts when you get older.”

“I thought art was a sort of romantic life, or I don't know what I thought art was like. But I learned practically everything I know from Ohio State. And I'm really glad I went.”

“I wasn't sure pop art or my work would last more than six months.”

“I'd always wanted to know the difference between a mark that was art and one that wasn't.”

“I'm interested in what would normally be considered the worst aspects of commercial art. I think its the tension between what seems to be so rigid and cliched and the fact that art really cant be this way.”

“I'm not really sure what social message my art carries, if any. And I don't really want it to carry one. I'm not interested in the subject matter to try to teach society anything, or to try to better our world in any way.”

“I'm trying to make paintings like giant musical chords, with a polyphony of colours that is nuts but works.”

“I've never done an anguished painting.”

“In America the biggest is the best.”

“Making something good and saying something brilliant are not two things. When you make your own statement, there is a higher energy level, and you do better painting.”

“My direction is very anti-contemplative. If you thought I was for commercial products, you'd think there was no irony. The irony isn't meant to be an ironic comment on our society, exactly.”

“My work isn't about form. It's about seeing. I'm excited about seeing things, and I'm interested in the way I think other people see things.”

“My work sanitizes emotion but it is also symbolic of commercial art sanitizing human feelings. I think it can be read that way. People mistake the character of line for the character of art. But it's really the position of line that's important, or the position of anything, any contrast, not the character of it.”