I'm very envious of the few artists who are any good and still do portraits.

I don't look at the work of my contemporaries very much; I tend to look at pictures by dead artists. It's much easier to get near their paintings.

We're going to ask artists in each state where the exhibit travels to paint portraits of all the servicemen and women from their state who have been killed. The portraits would stay on permanent display at the museum in that state.

A collection makes its own demands. Many artists have been collectors. I think of it rather as an illness. I felt it was using up too much energy.

Matisse was very clear about saying that you have to blow your own trumpet and explain yourself, which I think has been slightly forgotten.

I don't really have a historical overview of my work at all. I'm not an art historian. I don't see that there's this period and that period.