This one is real. Van Gogh wrote it to his friend and fellow painter Anthon van Rappard from Nuenen, on or about Tuesday 18 August 1885 — letter 528 in the Van Gogh Museum’s edition, catalogued in the older numbering as R57. He wrote it in Dutch (“Maar ik maak steeds wat ik nog niet kan om het te leeren kunnen”), so the famous English wording is a translator’s sentence carrying van Gogh’s thought — and it is emphatically not Picasso’s.
“I am always doing what I can't do yet in order to learn how to do it” Vincent van Gogh, letter to Anthon van Rappard, Nuenen, on or about 18 August 1885 (letter 528 / R57). Translated from the Dutch.
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In context
Evoking the world of Vincent van Gogh — Dutch Post-Impressionist painter. Theme: "I am always doing what I can't do yet in order to learn how to do it". 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 "I am always doing what I can't do yet in order to learn how to do it". 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
The letter
Work
Letter 528 (529, R57), to Anthon van Rappard
Written
Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 18 August 1885
Original
Dutch — “Maar ik maak steeds wat ik nog niet kan om het te leeren kunnen.”
Translation
Van Gogh Museum / Huygens ING (2009): “But I keep on making what I can’t do yet in order to learn to be able to do it.”
And in drawing as well as in painting I can sometimes keep hold of certain solid and useful things, a firmer hold than you think, amice. But I am always doing what I can’t do yet in order to learn how to do it. But writing you about this bores me.
R57 · to Anthon van Rappard
This is the English text of R57 as published by The Vincent van Gogh Gallery — the rendering that carries the familiar wording. The Van Gogh Museum’s own 2009 translation of the same Dutch sentence reads “But I keep on making what I can’t do yet in order to learn to be able to do it.” Both are faithful; neither is a sentence van Gogh wrote in English. “Amice” is the Latin vocative for “friend” — van Gogh’s habitual greeting to Rappard.
On or about 18 August 1885 — van Gogh, in Nuenen, writes to Anthon van Rappard defending his method against Rappard’s criticism: “Maar ik maak steeds wat ik nog niet kan om het te leeren kunnen.” The Van Gogh Museum and Huygens ING publish it as letter 528 (529, R57) ↗.
By 1979 — the familiar English wording is in print. Quote Investigator’s earliest match is Anatole Broyard’s New York Times review of The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh in three volumes, quoting “I am always doing what I can’t do yet in order to learn how to do it” — see Quote Investigator ↗.
The same wording, in the letter — the English text of R57 published by The Vincent van Gogh Gallery reads “But I am always doing what I can’t do yet in order to learn how to do it,” confirming the popular phrasing is a real translation of this passage and not a later invention: letter R57 (PDF) ↗.
The attribution to van Gogh is sound — unusually so for a quote this inspirational. What goes wrong is downstream: a dead painter gets the credit, and readers assume they are reading van Gogh’s own words when they are reading a translator’s.
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Wrong authorPablo Picasso Misattributed
Quote Investigator found the saying credited to Picasso in a 1995 Usenet message, in the form “I am always doing what I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” Picasso had died in 1973, and QI notes the attribution “occurred after his death and was not well supported.” See Quote Investigator ↗.
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WordingAn unnamed translator, not van Gogh Translation
Van Gogh wrote in Dutch: “Maar ik maak steeds wat ik nog niet kan om het te leeren kunnen.” The Van Gogh Museum and Huygens ING render that as “But I keep on making what I can’t do yet in order to learn to be able to do it” — recognisably the same sentence, but not the wording on the poster. See letter 528 at vangoghletters.org ↗.
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Provenance“Van Gogh, on painting” — usually cited with no letter, no date, no recipient Unsourced
The line circulates as a free-floating motto. It is not: it has a recipient (Anthon van Rappard), a place (Nuenen) and a date (on or about 18 August 1885), all documented in the Van Gogh Museum edition as letter 528 (529, R57) ↗.
In 1885 van Gogh was in the Brabant village of Nuenen, painting peasants in the dark earth tones that dominated his work before Paris and Arles. That May he had finished The Potato Eaters, his first major picture. It did not land the way he hoped: his friend Anthon van Rappard — a trained painter, and one of the few colleagues van Gogh had — criticised it sharply, and the two fell out.
This sentence comes from the repair work. Writing to van Rappard on or about 18 August 1885, van Gogh defends not a painting but a method. He concedes nothing about difficulty; he insists that difficulty is the point. The line is a working principle, jotted mid-argument to one other painter — not an aphorism composed for posterity, which is precisely why it survives with a date attached.
But I am always doing what I can’t do yet in order to learn how to do it.
What surrounds the line in the letter
The passage begins with van Gogh conceding the job is brutal: painting peasants is “such a hard job that the utterly weak won’t even attempt it.” He claims credit only for having attempted it and laid foundations.
Immediately after the famous sentence he cuts himself off — the subject bores him, he says — and pivots to an appeal for solidarity: painters of peasants and common people should join hands rather than quarrel.
The quarrel did mend. A note to the letter points to van Gogh telling his brother Theo that the rift with Rappard was “completely made up.”
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Vincent van Gogh (born Groot-Zundert, 30 March 1853; died Auvers-sur-Oise, 29 July 1890) is among the most famous and influential figures in Western art. He is also one of the most documented painters who ever lived: hundreds of his letters survive, including 58 to the painter Anthon van Rappard, which is why a line like this one can be pinned to a specific week in a specific village. In 1885 he was living in Nuenen, working in sombre earth tones and finishing The Potato Eaters — the very work whose reception provoked the exchange this sentence comes from.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source — Chicago
Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard, Nuenen, on or about Tuesday, 18 August 1885, letter 528 (529, R57), in Vincent van Gogh: The Letters (Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum; The Hague: Huygens ING, 2009), vangoghletters.org. The familiar English wording (“I am always doing what I can’t do yet in order to learn how to do it”) appears in the R57 text published by The Vincent van Gogh Gallery, and is documented in print by 1979.
MLA (9th ed.)
Van Gogh, Vincent. “Letter to Anthon van Rappard, on or about 18 August 1885,” no. 528 (529, R57). Vincent van Gogh: The Letters, Van Gogh Museum / Huygens ING, 2009, vangoghletters.org.
APA (7th ed.)
Van Gogh, V. (2009). Letter to Anthon van Rappard, on or about 18 August 1885 (No. 528/529, R57). In Vincent van Gogh: The letters. Van Gogh Museum; Huygens ING. (Original work published 1885)
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I am always doing what I can't do yet in order to learn how to do it’?” Last verified 14 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-am-always-doing-what-i-cant-do-yet-in-order-to-learn-how