Peter Saul

Professions :

Artist

You never know about the art world because it's a matter of opinion. If you look at old art like Rembrandt and Vermeer, it's not completely a matter of opinion. The pictures confront you, and you see exactly what it is. In modern art, a lot of it is suggestive, and it becomes a matter of opinion.

look you world art

I like to see things. I see a lot more art than I'd like to see. We have to be polite and see the art shows of people we know. We see a lot of art.

see know people art

A mistake I've made is I have not worried sufficiently about the art world, really. I have not concerned myself with the other people in the art world. I've been a little too singular, and that's a mistake I've made. But everybody makes a mistake of some kind, and if that's my only mistake, I'm happy.

myself mistake people art

There's a small group of people always watching me to make sure I'm still offending.

small group me people

I know it's a bit of an awful thing to say, but I really just make things up. My main goal is to make a picture that people find interesting to look at and that has my name on it.

picture name look people

I try to find a subject that is interesting to me and to the viewer both. If I can't, then I stop right there.

stop find try me

I enjoy finding a low subject and bringing it up high. I think with strong technique, you can glamorize certain things. You can make the imagery sharper, rounder, and basically better looking.

looking better you enjoy

I'm aware of other artists, but what I'm really most interested in is viewing individual pictures. I like dramatic pictures.

pictures like dramatic individual

I like it best when two ideas collide, like when you have a crazed attitude towards women combined with a crazed attitude towards the Vietnamese. I like that. Even if it's not true, I don't care whether it's true or false. I just do it.

best you women attitude

I try to vote as left as I can. I hope that my paintings will coincide and be far left, but frequently... the painting rebels and goes fascist on me.

me painting vote hope

A lot of the things I do are obvious things that for some reason are not done. I could never figure this out. Why don't people do the obvious?

never things done people

I celebrated success in the art world, which was quite sudden, and I suddenly had $1,000 a month, when formerly I had nothing, basically. So what we did with this money: we had a baby, we bought a car, and we celebrated by going to Rome, because it would be warmer and better looking.

car money success art

Unfortunately, I haven't thought sufficiently about art. What I never realized - and it's really stupid - is the art world is the art world because all these thousands of famous and not-famous artists do things, over centuries. This hadn't occurred to me.

me stupid world art

I'm into using acrylic, in a complicated kind of way: Making it just as good as oil paint - better, maybe. It's odd - when I started out, acrylic was for children, pretty much. It was a cheaper paint. It wasn't supposed to look very good or last very long.

good look long children

While in college, I used to get my ideas from photographs in 'National Geographic.' I started painting palm trees and motorboats.

trees painting college ideas

The Pop art I wound up doing came to me purely from 'Mad' comics. I loved the idea of doing fun stuff. I met an art dealer who wanted to show the work - that was in January 1962 - and that was the beginning for me.

beginning me work art

When I was growing up, nothing unpleasant was shown in the home. And when I was in art school, the only art that was presented to me was Abstract Expressionism. But I was interested in the grim stuff. It seemed more exciting.

me home art school

Burton Silverman

Bruce Nauman

Bruce Conner

Brom

Britney Spears

Brigid Berlin

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