"Good artists borrow, great artists steal"

Factual Questions
1

I’ve heard this quote in a variety of versions (substitute artists for writers, musicians, or composers), accredited to a variety of people (from Picasso to Paul McCartney), but from where does the quote actually originate? Who said it first?

2

There’s no way of knowing who said it first. Take it from someone who has edited a book of quotations.

Most sources attribute this one to Pablo Picasso or Igor Stravinsky, who both lived around the same time. A google search will turn up variations of the phrase being attributed to at leas a dozen others. That’s the problem with tracing the origins of quotations… you can find lots of sources in print, many of which are attributed, some of which are attributed wrongly. It’s very hard to find an original source unless a quote comes from a published work.

3

Sounds like something Picasso would say IMO the biggest fraud of 20thc art.
Looked at objectively his work is sterile ,desperately always trying to find a new gimmick to make up for his lack of any genuine creativity but he said all the right things ,started the right legends about himself and became fashionable among the chattering classes.

Now his “art” is a financial investment for banking institutions he will never get knocked off of his pedestal.

Using the "Emperors New Clothes " logic if you do not rate his work its because you are not sufficiently artistically intelligent enough to understand his thinking so many in the art world
wouldnt even dare to raise their voices against him.

IMO even Mondrian had more merit (but thats not saying much)

I find it ironic ,Picasso a phony who thought he was a genius and Dali a genius who thought he was a fraud.

Phew !sorry about the rant! but I find Picasso ,posturing windbag ,sycophant and coward that he was one of the most contemptible figures in modern history.

I ll get me coat then.

4

It often gets attributed to Igor Stravinsky. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/i/igorstravi155783.html
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/i/igorstravi137813.html

5

I always thought the saying referred to Led Zeppelin. :smiley: