Mother’s interest in contemporary American artists emerged during the 1920s.
We’ll buy some drugs and watch a band and jump in a river holding hands.
Truth exists in art.
Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.
Make the best of every moment. We’re not evolving. We’re not going anywhere.
It is unquestionably true that the need for art is not created by economic conditions. But neither is the need for food created by economics. On the contrary, the need for food and warmth creates economics.
An artist can only be evaluated after he’s dead. At the 11th hour he might do something that will eclipse everything else.
Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn’t insanity. Surrealism to me is reality.
I’ve always felt that a lot of modern art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists.
I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.
She opened up a book of poems and handed it to me written by an Italian poet from the 13th century and every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul from me to you.
MoMA is doubling its space, and I decided to raise the money for it.
There is nothing new… everything has roots in the past.
I wouldn’t give five cents for all the art in the world.
Eventually, most people felt MoMA had filled a very important gap.
The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.
Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.
The role of a museum of modern art is to make a good selection and identify what we believe to be the coming movements, and that requires taste.
Mother’s taste was eclectic and ranged from the ancient world to the contemporary from Europe to the U.S.
If you hold onto the beauty and inspiration and the clarity that is music, you will have an anchor, you will not be too far swayed by what the world is.
A museum has to renew its collection to be alive, but that does not mean we give on important old works.
