Quote Me

"The rich, the professional idlers, desire only the peculiar, the sensational, the eccentric, the scandalous in today's art. And I, myself, since the advent of cubism, have fed these fellows what they wanted, and satisfied the critics with all the ridiculous ideas that have passed through my head. The less they understood, the more they admired me! Through amusing myself with all these farces I became celebrated, and very rapidly. For a painter celebrity means sales and consequent affluence. Today, as you know, I am rich. But when I am alone, I do not have the effrontery to consider myself an artist at all, not in the grand old meaning of the word.

Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt, Goya were great painters. I am only a public clown...I have understood my time, and have exploited the imbecility, the vanity, the greed of my contemporaries. It is a bitter confession, more painful than it may seem, but at least, and at last, does have the merit of being honest."

-- Picasso, 1954, to Giovanni Papini