A biography for Willem de Kooninghasn’t been written yet.
“An artist is forced by others to paint out of his own free will.”
“The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.”
“Whatever an artist's personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists.”
“Style is a fraud. I always felt the Greeks were hiding behind their columns.”
“My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate.”
“I make pictures and someone comes in and calls it art.”
“The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves.”
“I don't paint to live, I live to paint.”
“Art never seems to make me peaceful or pure.”