Sigmar Polke's Quotes

A negative is never finished.

As a child, I copied Duerer drawings and Bruegel.

I began drawing as a very young child and had a grandfather who experimented with photography, so those things constituted my first exposure to art.

Picabia is a very old painter who some people try to connect me to, but I refuse such comparisons very well.

There has to be an element of risk-taking for me in my work.

When I was young, I was interested in Renaissance art.

Yes, my works... are enshrined in museums, but I don't care if the pieces fall apart in 20 years.

Mostly, drawings are things I make for myself - I do them in sketchbooks. They are mental experiments - private inner thoughts when I'm not sure what will come out.

We were very poor and my family lost everything during the war - our home and our identity. But I'm a believer in luck and think the social conditions you're born into provide the opportunity for you to prove your luck. And I suppose I've been lucky.