Jacques Lipchitz Quotations

Imagination is a very precise thing, you know-it is not fantasy; the man who invented the wheel while he was observing another man walking-that is imagination!

I am the most curious of all to see what will be the next thing that I will do.

A necessary process for the artist is one which begins with a point of view, a reaction to the environment, to people, to whatever it is one is concerned with.

I remember one day when Juan Gris told me about a bunch of grapes he had seen in a painting by Picasso. The next day these grapes appeared in a painting by Gris, this time in a bowl; and the day after, the bowl appeared in a painting by Picasso.

Imagination is a very precise thing, you know - it is not fantasy; the man who invented the wheel while he was observing another man walking - that is imagination!

I found so-called great art too pompous, too stiff. What at this time was called minor art was freer, more imaginative, more open to all kinds of unorthodox expression, all kinds of daring in the handling of materials, and I preferred to surround myself with this type of art than with the great collectors' pieces. I had always in my mind that I was collecting for learning.

Copy nature and you infringe on the work of our Lord. Interpret nature and you are an artist.

Cubism is like standing at a certain point on a mountain and looking around. If you go higher, things will look different; if you go lower, again they will look different. It is a point of view.

All my life as an artist I have asked myself: What pushes me continually to make sculpture? I have found the answer. art is an action against death. It is a denial of death.

Art is an action against death. It is a denial of death.