Kenneth Noland

“I think of myself as an American painter. A real American painter.”

“For me, it's a question of the straitjacket. You have to work in a straitjacket. It's not a question of 'Where do I put it?' It's a question of 'Where *don't* I put it?'”

“Color is the main thing. It's the subject matter. It's about color.”

“I wanted to have color be the origin of the painting. I was trying to neutralize the gesture, the touch.”

“The thing is to get the color down on the canvas. It has to be right there, on the surface. It can't be an allusion to something else.”

“What you're really trying to do is make something that is so there that it's just a fact.”

“Structure is a way of getting at an experience of color.”

“You can't get a new art without a new sensibility.”

“I'm interested in the wholeness of a painting, the way it holds together, the way it stands up.”

“Art is a matter of discipline. It's a way of life.”

“The best painting has no illustrator quality. It has to be just paint.”

“Circles are a way of containing color, of making it sit.”

“You have to be able to risk failure. That's the only way you can do anything new.”