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Who really said it

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things

Attributed to Pablo Picasso 1881–1973 · Spanish painter, sculptor and co-founder of Cubism
Attributed In copyright

The line is documented — but at one remove. Its earliest known appearance is Life with Picasso (McGraw-Hill, 1964), the memoir Françoise Gilot wrote with art critic Carlton Lake, where Picasso says it while showing Gilot an album of his prints. Gilot was recalling words she heard in the 1940s; Picasso never wrote them down, and the version that circulates online has been reworded — the book reads “He just keeps on trying other things.”

Last verified 7 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things” Pablo Picasso (attributed) — "God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things." Earliest documented in Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake, Life with Picasso (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), p. 50, where the text reads "He just keeps on trying other things." Recalled by Gilot from the 1940s; not written by Picasso. Verified via Quotle.info

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake / their estates; McGraw-Hill (original publisher), with the current edition from New York Review Books). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Pablo Picasso — Spanish painter, sculptor and co-founder of Cubism. Theme: "God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where it actually comes from

Work
Life with Picasso
Authors
Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake
First published
McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1964 — quote at p. 50
Nature of the record
Gilot’s recollection of Picasso speaking in the 1940s, printed in English; no earlier record of the remark is known

He doesn’t know what he wants. No wonder his style is so ambiguous. It’s like God’s, God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He has no real style. He just keeps on trying other things. As printed in 1964

This is the passage as Quote Investigator ↗ transcribes it from p. 50. Note the ending: “keeps on trying,” not the “goes on trying” of the popular version. Wikiquote ↗ lists the line in its 1960s section and glosses it as Picasso commenting on his ambiguous style, or use of multiple styles.

Scanned first edition
Life with Picasso (McGraw-Hill, 1964) at the Internet Archive
Quote Investigator: tracing the giraffe, the elephant and the cat

Paper trail

  • 1943–1953 — Françoise Gilot lives with Picasso; they have two children, Claude and Paloma. She would become, as her biography records ↗, the only one of his companions to publicly recount her experiences with him.
  • 1964 — Life with Picasso, written with the art critic Carlton Lake, is published by McGraw-Hill. Quote Investigator ↗ identifies p. 50 as the earliest known appearance of the remark, and notes Lake’s foreword vouching for Gilot’s recall of dialogue. Picasso’s attempt to block publication failed.
  • 10 October 1964 — the line is already travelling in the press: Quote Investigator ↗ records it quoted in the Courier-Post of Camden, New Jersey, still with “keeps on trying other things.”
  • 1993 and 2000 — the wording drifts in the reference books. Per Quote Investigator ↗, The Harper Book of Quotations (p. 175) prints “God is really another artist… goes on trying,” and The Times Book of Quotations (p. 313) prints the exact form that dominates the internet today.
In copyright

The only documented source for this quote is Life with Picasso, first published in 1964 — comfortably inside US copyright, so the text is in copyright, not public domain. The published English wording is Gilot and Lake’s, and the book remains in print: New York Review Books reissued it as an NYRB Classic in June 2019 ↗. Quote it as a short attributed excerpt with credit, not as free-to-reuse text.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What gets garbled

This one is not a fabrication — the attribution to Picasso is real and traceable. What has gone wrong is the wording and the framing: the sentence has been quietly edited by quotation books, and it is almost always quoted stripped of the conversation it belonged to.

“He just goes on trying other things” Reworded

The 1964 memoir reads “He just keeps on trying other things.” Quote Investigator ↗ traces the “goes on” form through later reference works, including The Times Book of Quotations (2000), p. 313, which prints exactly the version that circulates today.

“God is really another artist” Dropped word

A shorter variant drops the word “only.” Quote Investigator ↗ records this reading in The Harper Book of Quotations (1993), p. 175 — which also carries the “goes on trying” ending.

Picasso the theologian Out of context

Posted alone, it reads as a wry remark about God. In the memoir it is a defence of Picasso’s own restlessness: Quote Investigator ↗ describes him showing Gilot a large album of his prints and commenting on the diversity of styles displayed in them.

“Picasso wrote…” Not written

Nothing here comes from Picasso’s pen. The record is Gilot’s recollection of speech, published in 1964 and describing words she says she heard in the 1940s — a point Quote Investigator ↗ states explicitly in its conclusion.

Picasso is the right name. The right text is Gilot and Lake’s: “God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He has no real style. He just keeps on trying other things” — Life with Picasso, 1964, p. 50 ↗.

Context

Why he said it

Picasso is the artist people accuse of not having a style — blue period, rose period, Cubism, neoclassicism, the late reworkings of old masters. This sentence is his answer to that charge, and it arrives in the middle of an ordinary afternoon rather than an interview: Quote Investigator ↗ describes him showing Françoise Gilot a large album of his prints and remarking on the sheer diversity of styles inside it.

The move is a small theological joke with a serious edge. If consistency is the mark of a real artist, then look at creation: the giraffe, the elephant and the cat cannot all have come from one house style. Picasso is not defending sloppiness — he is arguing that restlessness is what making things actually looks like.

He has no real style. He just keeps on trying other things.

Read the full story

One reason to trust the line, and one reason to hold it loosely. In favour: Carlton Lake’s foreword to the 1964 memoir vouches for Gilot’s recall of who said what across their years together, and Quote Investigator ↗ flags this as part of the case for the quotation’s accuracy.

Against: it is still a memoir. Words spoken in the 1940s reached print in 1964, filtered through one participant’s memory and a co-author’s prose. That is why this page says attributed rather than verified — the source is real, specific and citable, but it is not Picasso’s own hand.

Picasso himself did not welcome the book. As Gilot’s biography records ↗, he mounted an unsuccessful legal challenge to prevent its publication, and cut off contact with their children after it appeared. The memoir went on to sell more than a million copies.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Creativity Humility

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: “God Is Really Only Another Artist”quoteinvestigator.com

The definitive trace. Establishes Gilot & Lake, Life with Picasso (1964), p. 50 as the earliest appearance and documents how the wording changed in later quotation books.
Wikiquote: Pablo Picassoen.wikiquote.org

Lists the line in its 1960s section with the “goes on trying” wording, cited to The Atlantic, vol. 214 (1964), p. 97.
Life with Picasso (McGraw-Hill, 1964)archive.org

Scan of the 1964 first edition by Gilot and Lake, borrowable through the Internet Archive’s lending programme — the book the quote comes from.
Françoise Giloten.wikipedia.org

Biography of the painter (1921–2023) whose memoir is the sole record of this remark, including Picasso’s failed attempt to stop its publication.
Pablo Picassoen.wikipedia.org

Life dates (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973), his co-founding of Cubism, and the French decades in which this conversation took place.
NYRB Classics edition of Life with Picassonyrb.com

The in-print edition (New York Review Books, June 2019, introduction by Lisa Alther) — evidence the text is still commercially published and under copyright.

The artist credited

Who was Pablo Picasso?

Pablo Picasso

1881–1973 · Spanish painter, sculptor and co-founder of Cubism

Pablo Picasso (born 25 October 1881, died 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter and sculptor who co-founded the Cubist movement and spent most of his adult life in France. He is one of the internet’s most heavily quoted artists — and one of its most heavily misquoted, because he wrote almost no essays or manifestos, so nearly every famous Picasso line survives only as something a friend, lover, dealer or journalist remembered him saying. This quote is a case in point: it reaches us entirely through Françoise Gilot (1921–2023), the painter who lived with him from about 1943 to 1953 and published her account of those years in 1964.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Cite this page

Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake, Life with Picasso (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 50. Quote Investigator records this as the earliest known appearance of the remark.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things’?” Last verified 7 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/god-is-really-only-another-artist-he-invented-the-giraffe/

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