Art & Creativity Quote by David Hockney

Hockney’s little stutter - “I did, I mean I painted er” - is the sound of an artist refusing to let his own origin story calcify into legend. He’s answering an implied charge: that he “did Abstract Expressionism” the way a student tries on a costume. Instead of a grand manifesto, he offers a shrug that’s also a defense. The hesitations signal self-awareness, even mild embarrassment, about how easily a career gets narrated as a clean sequence of movements.

The key move is “because of course that was exciting.” “Of course” is doing heavy lifting: it locates Abstract Expressionism not as a doctrine to swear by, but as the dominant weather of its moment. The subtext is generational and cultural. If you were a young painter coming up in the long shadow of New York’s postwar swagger, you didn’t need to be indoctrinated; the excitement was ambient, already mythologized as freedom, scale, risk, masculinity, America. Hockney admits the pull without pretending it was destiny.

There’s also a quiet pivot embedded in the line: he frames AbEx as an experience, not an identity. That’s classic Hockney - curious, opportunistic, allergic to purity tests. He’s suggesting that style can be a phase you inhabit for its energy, then move past once you’ve taken what you need. In an art world that loves loyalty pledges to movements, he treats influence like weather: real, bracing, temporary.