Ad Reinhardt Quotes

American painter and printmaker (1913–1967)

Adolph Dietrich Friedrich Reinhardt ("Ad" Reinhardt) (December 24, 1913 – August 30, 1967) was a painter, writer, and pioneer of conceptual and minimal art. He was also a critic of abstract expressionism.

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Pen Names: Reinhardt, Adolph Frederick

Alternative Names: Adolph Frederick Reinhardt • Adolph Frederick. Reinhardt • Adolph F. Reinhardt • Adolph Dietmar Friedrich Reinhardt • Adolph Dietrich Friedrich Reinhardt • Ad F. Reinhardt • Adolph Friedrich Reinhardt • A. D. F. Reinhardt

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'Study the old masters. Look at nature. Watch out for armpits'. [in 1956, Reinhardt is quoting Paul Cézanne here freely]

And today many artists like myself refuse to be involved in some ideas. In painting – for me – no fooling-the-eye, no window-hole-in-the wall, no illusions, no representations, no associations, no distortions, no paint-caricaturing, no dream pictures of dripping, no delirium trimmings, no sadism or slashing, no therapy, no kicking-the-effigy, no clowning, no acrobatics, no heroics, no self-pity, no guilt.. ..no abstraction of everything, no nonsense, no involvements, no confusing painting with everything that is no painting.

It’s been said many times in world art writing that one can find some of painting’s meaning by looking not only at what painters do, but what they refuse to do.

An abstract painting will react to you if you react to it. You get from it what you bring to it. It will meet you half way but no further. It is alive if you are. It represents something and so do you. YOU, SIR, ARE A SPACE, TOO.

What greater challenge today.. ..to disorder and insensitivity; what greater propaganda for integration than this emotionally intense, dramatic division of space? (quote in 1943, discussing the art of Piet Mondrian)