I Do Not Weep: I Loathe Tears,

As A Painter, Cursed Or Blessed With A Terrible And Vital Sensuousness, I Must Look For Wisdom With My Eyes. I Repeat, With My Eyes, For Nothing Could Be More Ridiculous Or Irrelevant Than A 'philosophical Conception Painted Purely Intellectually Without The Terrible Fury Of The Senses Grasping Each Visible Form Of Beauty And Ugliness.

I Have Never, God Or Whatever Knows, Prostrated Myself To Be Famous, But I Would Meander Through All The Sewers Of The World, Through All Degradations And Humiliations, In Order To Paint. I Have To Do This. Until The Last Drop Every Vision That Exists In My Being Must Be Purged; Then It Will Be A Pleasure For Me To Be Rid Of This Damned Torture

What I Want To Show In My Work Is The Idea Which Hides Itself Behind So-called Reality.

The World Is Rather Shot To Pieces [end Of World War Ii - 1945], But The Spectators Climb Out Of Their Caves And Pretend To Have Again Become Normal And Customary Humans Who Ask Each Other's Pardon Instead Of Eating One Another Or Sucking Each Other's Blood. The Entertaining Folly Of War Evaporates, Distinguished Boredom Sits Down Again On The Dignified Old Overstuffed Chairs.. .may I Report About Myself That I Have Had A Truly Grotesque Time, Brim-full With Work, Nazi Persecutions, Bombs, Hunger, And Again And Again Work - In Spite Of Everything [a. O. Using His Bed Sheets As Canvas For The New Paintings].

The Important Thing Is First Of All To Have A Real Love For The Visible World That Lies Outside Ourselves As Well As To Know The Deep Secret Of What Goes On Within Ourselves.