When I finish a painting, it usually looks as surprising to me as to anyone else.

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• Howard Hodgkin:

  A painting is finished when the subject comes back, when what has caused the painting to be made co

• Howard Hodgkin:

  Collecting has been my great extravagance. It's a way of being. I collect for the same reason that

• Howard Hodgkin:

  I want my pictures to be things. I want them to be made up of marks that are physically and individ

• Howard Hodgkin:

  I'm vulnerable to criticism. Any artist is, because you work alone in your studio and, until recent

• Howard Hodgkin:

  My friends tend to be writers. I think writers and painters are really all the same-we just sit in

• Howard Hodgkin:

  I am isolated as an artist, not as a person.

• Howard Hodgkin:

  I find old copies of National Gallery catalogues, which are written in the dryest possible prose, i

• Howard Hodgkin:

  I am happy for people to talk about my pictures, but I wish devoutly that I was not expected to tal

• Howard Hodgkin:

  You keep on balancing and balancing and balancing until the picture wins, because then the subject'

• Howard Hodgkin:

  I fell through a crack for years. Historically, I am a nothing because I fit in no category. I can