David Hockney quotes

David Hockney is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, and photographer, recognized as one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. His vibrant use of color and innovative explorations of perspective have transformed modern art. He continues to inspire with his creative versatility and embrace of new technologies in artistic practice. Here are 122 of his quotes:

Television is becoming a collage - there are so many channels that you move through them making a collage yourself. In that sense, everyone sees something a bit different.

David Hockney

With chemical film, it was possible to alter photographs, but you had to be an expert. That's not true any more. The LA Times fired a photographer at the beginning of the Iraq War for editing two shots together. Photography is crumbling. Certainly it is for the newspapers a bit now, isn't it? There will be painting again, absolutely!

David Hockney

All art is contemporary, if it's alive. And if it's not alive, what's the point of it?

David Hockney

Any artist will tell you he's really only interested in the stuff he's doing now. He will, always. It's true, and it should be like that.

David Hockney

I can get excitement watching rain on a puddle. And then I paint it. Now, I admit, there are not too many people who would find that exciting. But I would. And I want life thrilling and rich. And it is. I make sure it is.

David Hockney

It sometimes takes a foreigner to come and see a place and paint it. I remember someone saying they had never really noticed the palm trees here until I painted them.

David Hockney

I usually only draw myself in down periods... I suppose that's why I often draw myself looking grim. I just think, 'Let's have a look in the mirror.' When you are alone and you look in a mirror you never put on a pleasing smile. Well, you don't, do you?

David Hockney

What I always longed to do was to be able to paint like I can draw, most artists would tell you that, they would all like to paint like they can draw.

David Hockney

How can Blair fight a war on terror? Terror is not an ideology or an army; terror is a technique.

David Hockney

In the end nobody knows how it's done - how art is made. It can't be explained. Optical devices are just tools. Understanding a tool doesn't explain the magic of creation. Nothing can.

David Hockney

The choice is not between drugs and no drugs, but between illegal drugs and legal drugs. Until the 1920s drugs were legal, why not now? Lots of people are on drugs anyway - it is called medication.

David Hockney

In one gallery they actually had a notice which said "No Sketching." How obnoxious! I said, "How do you think these things got on the walls if there was no sketching?"

David Hockney

Before he did all those lovely line drawings, Matisse would make really detailed charcoal drawings and tear them up. He wouldn't leave them about, he thought of them as working drawings. I understand what he was doing: discovering what's there. And then when you come to use line, if you know what you're looking at, it's much easier to make the line meaningful, to find a linear solution to what you want to depict.

David Hockney

If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed.

David Hockney

Listening is a positive act: you have to put yourself out to do it.

David Hockney

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

David Hockney

Most artists work all the time, they do actually, especially good artists, they work all the time, what else is there to do? I mean you do.

David Hockney

I think I'm greedy, but I'm not greedy for money - I think that can be a burden - I'm greedy for an exciting life.

David Hockney

It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does, rather than what he says about his work.

David Hockney

But, I would always be thinking of how pictures are constructed and colour, how to use it, I mean you're using it for constructing, makes you think about it, the place did as well.

David Hockney

Future art that is based on appearances won't look like the art that's gone before. Even revivals of a period are not the same.

David Hockney

Always live in the ugliest house on the street - then you don't have to look at it.

David Hockney