David Niven Quotes

Someday my paintings will be hanging in the Louvre. [Vincent Van Gogh]

When I grow up I would like to be an artist in France.

My mother was willing to support art as a summer program for me. She never supported it as a career decision until I won the National Gallery Portrait Competition.

When I was setting out to be an artist, I said: If I can just produce one work that some people think is good, if I can become an obscure cult artist, that's all I want. Well, I attained that. I'm an obscure cult artist, and I think now, Why didn't I say I want to be another Picasso or something? What other options were open to me? But I was convinced I couldn't achieve great things because I don't have a steady-state mind.

The 10 or 12 artists I have known really well all my life are at least as competitive as professional athletes. They may express it in slightly different terms, but you look at the Jackson Pollocks et al., and they are as interested in wall space in the galleries as Joe Montana is in the percentage of completed passes. So the notion that symphonic conducting, or stage play, or pure art, is not a competitive business is real bullshit.

I have two wonderful, supportive and very practical parents who were like, you're really talented and really creative. You should be a lawyer because there's a safe path there. And I knew that I was never going to be a lawyer. And I knew that I wanted to make movies, and I wanted to write shows.

I never studied sculpture, engineering or architecture. In fact, after college I applied to seven art schools and was rejected by all seven.

I just dreamed about living in Paris and being French. I always loved the visual arts, film and theatre, and I hoped to be involved in creating beautiful products and images.

Artists don't compare themselves to each other based on money. Nobody really knows what money other artists have. They don't care that much. The measure is the work and how you think your work is perceived. How the museums are. How you are doing.

For the first time in my career, I'm working in a fine-arts arena, so I'm finally getting some intelligent reviews.

I set my sights upon becoming the kind of artist who would make a contribution to art history.

I never wanted to be someone who's asking someone to put my work in their gallery. I wanted to be asked.

There are goals that I had set out for myself as an artist. I have accomplished some of them - becoming accepted all over the world - however, other parts of my goals have not been completed.

I've had so much success. I had something to say, I got to say it, people heard it, and they agreed. That's every artist's dream. That's the brass ring.

'Certifiably Jonathan' contrives crises for its subject - a bid to get his paintings into MOMA, among others.

I've experienced everything any aspiring artist could ever want.

I always thought I was going to be an artist. I used to draw, and I would read Russian novels until 3 or 4 in the morning.

You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study... Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.

I was voted most artistic in school.

A lot of people, even my parents, thought, "Art school, I don't know. We'll support you but the success rate for artists is really slim."

I had given up ( around 1950, fh) any ambition of making a career as an artist…..I had lost all interest in the art shown in galleries and museums, and I no longer aspired to fit in that world. I loved the paintings done by children, and my only desire was to do the same for my own pleasure.

The frame is the reward of the artist.

I didn't do so well in the academic world, so I think the only way I could express myself was through visual art - anything I could get my hands on, whether it was glassblowing, sculpture, painting, or photography. I always wanted to be a painter. Or a farmer.

No. Not yet. A craftsman only. But I dream to be an artist. I pray that someday, if I work with enough care, if I am very very lucky, I will make a weapon that is a work of art. Call me an artist then, and I will answer.

It's easy to look down from the summit you've reached, or even the summit I've reached, and talk about the responsibilities of the artist, but most people are just trying to get their foot in the door and make a living.