LeRoy Neiman Quotes

There's no greatest moment in the arts. It's a life, it's a continuity thing. You can't have a great moment because it's spiritual. It's a belief, it's a calling. If you're an artist, doing your own thing on your own, it's while you're doing it that counts. It's a process. If you get too elated, you can get too depressed.

'Playboy' made the good life a reality for me and made it the subject matter of my paintings - not affluence and luxury as such, but joie de vivre itself.

The businessman says 'If I don't do it first, somebody else will.' The artist says 'If I don't do it first, nobody else will.'

I've got the public. I don't care about the critics. I did at one time. I don't any more. I did when I needed compliments. But if you get a lot of compliments, you don't need a critic to tell you, 'This should be done another way.'

As I turn 91 this June 8th, I have to admit my hours at the easel have diminished.

My lovely wife Janet has been in a few paintings. She is basically a reserved woman who has never sought the limelight. She has always been there throughout my career and continues to be at my side.

I have always said to young artists that scholastic training and the studying of art history are crucial to fully developing as an artist.

No, I never had any dreams. The process of art is a dream in itself. The artist just doesn't ... you work out something. It's yours. You don't have to go to sleep to do that. You do that on the canvas.

I can easily ignore my detractors and feel the people who respond favorably.

It's a nice feeling to go out in the world and look for excellence - the best in man. My subject is very valid. It's about people, and about life.

It has been difficult to hold onto many paintings but I have retained a few. Possibly the current favorite is titled 'Big Band' completed in 2005. It measures 13 feet x 9 feet. It has 18 nearly life size recognizable portraits of the biggest jazz stars that I knew and saw perform in the 1950s, '60s, '70s, '80s and includes Wynton Marsalis.

I played an artist in a comedy called 'Rooster.' It was a zany film by Glen Larson, a friend who produced several successful television series including 'Magnum PI.'

I hold doors open for all the women. Men can open the doors for themselves.

The big shock of my life was Abstract Expressionism - Pollock, de Kooning, those guys. It changed my work. I was an academically trained student, and suddenly you could pour paint, smear it on, broom it on!

The people who love my paintings, that respond to them the most, they're spectators, they're not viewers.

I always stayed in tune with my own ambitions and attitudes and I'm still my intractable old self, for better or worse.

Some people try to paint in my style. Some simply sell pirated copies of my work. Some claim to be my publisher or agent or even my exclusive representative, when they are not.

When I paint, I seriously consider the public presence of a person - the surface facade. I am less concerned with how people look when they wake up or how they act at home. A person's public presence reflects his own efforts at image development.

You know what I like about San Francisco? The women are beautiful, fashionable and smart. San Francisco is one of the only cities I like to visit. I love New York and Chicago - I studied there, and L.A. has the same people as New York.

Every time I started painting it was like a new experience, but they all came out the same.