When painters feel the need to make a shift toward self-discovery, they turn to black and white for a time.

- Barnett Newman

The impulse of modern art was this desire to destroy beauty.

- Barnett Newman

Aesthetics is for the artist like ornithology is for the birds.

- Barnett Newman

Sculpture is what you bump into when you back up to see a painting.

- Barnett Newman

Any art worthy of its name should address 'life', 'man', 'nature', 'death' and 'tragedy'.

- Barnett Newman

A painter is a choreographer of space.

- Barnett Newman

I prefer to leave the paintings to speak for themselves.

- Barnett Newman

Painting, like passion, is a living voice, which, when I hear it, I must let it speak, unfettered.

- Barnett Newman

I hope that my painting has the impact of giving someone, as it did me, the feeling of his own totality, of his own separateness, of his own individu…

- Barnett Newman