LeRoy Neiman Quotes
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I guess I created LeRoy Neiman. Nobody else told me how to do it. Well, I'm a believer in the theory that the artist is as important as his work.
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But 'Playboy' was liberating. I was drawn to it and went for it full throttle.
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I had a go at changing history - maybe not all by myself - I fought at the battle of Normandy, I slogged through the Ardennes, and I celebrated the liberation of Paris on the streets with beautiful French girls throwing flowers at me. I said good-bye to my first true love and discovered what I really wanted to do with my life.
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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.
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'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.
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Imagination comes of not having things.
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You can't take yourself too seriously.
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I hold doors open for all the women. Men can open the doors for themselves.
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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.
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Eating is one of the great beauties in life. One of my favorite recreations... eating with friends, the service, the ambience.
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I've zeroed in on what you would call action and excellence... Everybody who does anything to try to succeed has to give the best of themselves, and art has made me pull the best out of myself.
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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.'
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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.'
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I draw all the time. Drawing is my backbone. I don't think a painter has to be able to draw, I just think that if you draw, you better draw well.
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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.
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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.
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Boxing is my real passion. I can go to ballet, theatre, movies, or other sporting events... and nothing is like the fights to me. I'm excited by the visual beauty of it. A boxer can look so spectacular by doing a good job.
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The most important thing is to just do it. If I work at a higher level I have responsibility to do better than what I've done before. Sometimes the best happens - beyond possibility. Just do it. Can't worry about it.
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As I turn 91 this June 8th, I have to admit my hours at the easel have diminished.
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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!
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I don't know if I'm an impressionist or an expressionist. You can call me an American first... I've been labeled doing neimanism, so that's what it is, I guess.
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It's not the act of arrogance to draw, it's humbling - you must use your God-given talent. And of all the people I sketch, in most cases I feel I have to measure up to the subject.
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I always stayed in tune with my own ambitions and attitudes and I'm still my intractable old self, for better or worse.
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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.