Philip Pearlstein Quotes

It is what is painted between the outlines that makes the difference between merely competent painting and really meaningful art.

Look slowly and hard at something subtle and small.

There will always be those who want to make paintings of the human form with all its parts all where they should be, in spite of progress.

Only the mature artist who works from a model is capable of seeing the body for itself, only he has the opportunity for prolonged viewing.

I get my highs from using my eyes.

I decided that expressionism was a cheap way of getting a reaction - show anybody ripped apart, and you get sympathy. I was deliberately trying to show the human body as whole and relatively healthy.

I suggest that it is the honesty of the attempt to recreate the forms and spaces visually without artistic editing that is one of the hallmarks of realist painting.

Each work has to be done as intensely as possible.