Frank Auerbach

“What I'm trying to do is to make a certain note, a certain kind of form, a certain kind of landscape, and it's not a question of illustrating a thing.”

“I have this toothache of a desire to make a painting that is all of a piece, a single thing.”

“I think that the most important thing is to be surprised. If you're not surprised, you're not getting anything. And the only way to be surprised is to be open.”

“The only way one can be a painter is by being a painter. You can't be a painter by writing about it or talking about it, you have to do it.”

“I think paintings are pictures of an experience rather than of an object.”

“It seems to me that the desire to make pictures has nothing to do with the art market.”

“To paint, you have to be in a state of crisis.”