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Who really said it

I do not seek. I find

Attributed to Pablo Picasso 1881–1973 · Spanish painter & sculptor, co-founder of Cubism
Attributed — and weakly. The words are in print under Picasso’s name in 1930, but Picasso scholarship treats the text they come from as a pirated rework of a 1923 interview rather than something he wrote. Free to reuse

The wording is in print under Picasso’s name in his lifetime — but the document behind it is contested. “Je ne cherche pas, je trouve” appears in “Lettre sur l’art par Picasso” in the Paris review Formes, no. 2 (February 1930), which the editors introduce as extracts from a text published under Picasso’s name in the Moscow magazine Ogoniok (no. 20, 16 May 1926) and translated from the Russian by C. Motchoulsky (BnF Gallica ↗). It falls short of verified for a reason deeper than the translation chain: Pierre Daix’s Dictionnaire Picasso (1995) judges that Russian publication, put out by Gueorgui Iakoulov, “une reprise piratée et émaillée d’inventions” — a pirated reworking laced with inventions — of the authentic interview Picasso gave Marius de Zayas in 1923. So this is an interview text of doubtful provenance, not a letter Picasso wrote. English Wikiquote ↗ files the English form in its Disputed section, and Hélène Parmelin, who knew Picasso well, hedged on whether he ever said it at all.

Last verified 27 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“I do not seek. I find” I do not seek. I find. — attributed to Pablo Picasso. Printed in French as “Je ne cherche pas, je trouve” in “Lettre sur l'art,” Formes no. 2 (February 1930), translated from the Russian by C. Motchoulsky, from a text published under Picasso's name in the Moscow magazine Ogoniok in 1926 — which Pierre Daix identified as a pirated rework of Picasso's authentic 1923 interview with Marius de Zayas. English Wikiquote lists the English wording as disputed.

Can you use it?

Free to use in the United States — the 1930 Formes text is public domain there. Outside the US the term runs from the author’s death, and Picasso died in 1973, so treat the text as in copyright in France and the rest of the EU until 2044 and check your local term before commercial reuse.

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In context

Evoking the world of Pablo Picasso — Spanish painter & sculptor, co-founder of Cubism. Theme: "I do not seek. I find". 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.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I do not seek. I find". 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 printed source

Work
“Lettre sur l’art par Picasso”
First printed
Ogoniok, Moscow, no. 20, 16 May 1926 — a text published under Picasso’s name, per the editors’ note in Formes
Authenticity
Contested. Pierre Daix, Dictionnaire Picasso (1995), pp. 329–330, 488, 914, calls the Ogoniok interview, published by Gueorgui Iakoulov, a pirated and invention-laced reworking of Picasso’s authentic 1923 interview with Marius de Zayas
French text
Formes: revue internationale des arts plastiques, no. 2, February 1930 — French Wikiquote cites p. 3; Citations vérifiées ↗ gives pp. 2 and 5 of the same issue
Translation
Russian into French by C. Motchoulsky; the English “I do not seek. I find” has no named translator

On me prend d’habitude pour un chercheur. Je ne cherche pas, je trouve. Formes · February 1930

As printed in Formes, no. 2 (February 1930), under the heading “Lettre sur l’art par Picasso.” Sources disagree on the page: French Wikiquote cites p. 3, Citations vérifiées pp. 2 and 5, and BnF Gallica blocks automated readers, so we could not settle it ourselves. Literally: “I am usually taken for a searcher. I do not seek, I find.” That English rendering is ours — no published English translation of this text is attached to the famous line. The same sentence closes the essay a few pages later, immediately above the credit “(Traduit du Russe par C. Motchoulsky.)”

Digitised magazine (BnF Gallica)
Formes no. 2, February 1930 — the issue scan (French Wikiquote points here for p. 3)
Formes, no. 2 (February 1930) at BnF Gallica

Paper trail

  • May 1923 — The authentic text. Picasso makes the same argument in English, in “Picasso Speaks” in The Arts, vol. 3 (New York), edited by Marius de Zayas: “In my opinion to search means nothing in painting. To find is the thing.” Not yet the famous four words, but the identical thought, cited by Wikiquote at pp. 315–329 ↗.
  • 16 May 1926 — A text published under Picasso’s name appears in the Moscow illustrated magazine Ogoniok (no. 20), alongside a photograph of the painter with his son. The editors’ note above the French text in Formes ↗ presents it as extracts from a letter signed by Picasso — a description later scholarship rejects.
  • February 1930 — The Paris review Formes runs “Lettre sur l’art par Picasso,” translated from the Russian by C. Motchoulsky: “On me prend d’habitude pour un chercheur. Je ne cherche pas, je trouve.” This is the earliest printing of the exact wording this page could locate, in BnF’s scan of the issue ↗ — French Wikiquote places it on p. 3, Citations vérifiées on pp. 2 and 5.
  • 1995 — Pierre Daix, in the Dictionnaire Picasso (pp. 329–330, 488, 914), identifies the Ogoniok piece as an interview published by Gueorgui Iakoulov and describes it as “une reprise piratée et émaillée d’inventions” of the 1923 de Zayas interview — a pirated rework, salted with invention. Citations vérifiées ↗ independently calls the Formes text “un montage fantaisiste réalisé à partir de précédentes déclarations.”
  • Since — The line becomes, in Hélène Parmelin’s words, “la phrase de Picasso le plus souvent citée” — while she herself doubted he had ever pronounced it. English Wikiquote lists “I do not seek, I find” in its Disputed section ↗, citing only Graham Sutherland’s 1936 essay in Signature.
Public domain

Both publications behind this line predate 1931 and are in the public domain in the United States: the Russian text in Ogoniok (1926) and the French rendering in Formes (February 1930), translated by C. Motchoulsky. This is a US finding only — outside the US the term runs seventy years from the author’s death (Picasso died in 1973), so material published under his name stays in copyright in France and the EU until 2044. The bare four-word English rendering has no identified translator and is not traceable to any one copyrighted edition. Note also that modern books and scholarly editions that reprint the essay — such as Gallimard’s Propos sur l’art (1998) — carry their own copyright in those editions.

This reflects the original work, which is public domain. If your exact English wording comes from a specific modern translation, that translation may itself still be under copyright — check the edition you quote.

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.

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Fact-check

What gets it wrong

The thought is Picasso’s; the four words may not be. Everything wrapped around them — the language, the medium, the document, and above all the certainty — comes apart on inspection.

“A letter signed by Picasso” Contested source

The Formes editors call their text extracts from a letter signed by Picasso. Pierre Daix, in the Dictionnaire Picasso (1995), pp. 329–330, 488, 914, says otherwise: the 1926 Ogoniok piece was an interview published by Gueorgui Iakoulov and is “une reprise piratée et émaillée d’inventions” of the interview Picasso really gave Marius de Zayas in 1923. Citations vérifiées ↗ reaches the same verdict independently, calling it “un montage fantaisiste.” Every citation of this page as a Picasso letter — ours included, until this revision — inherits that problem.

“Yo no busco, yo encuentro” Wrong language

The Spanish form circulates as though it were Picasso’s own words, and it looks native because he was Spanish. But the documented printed text is French, translated from Russian. Even Wikiquote’s Disputed entry ↗ prints the Spanish version first, with no Spanish source behind it.

“Picasso said…” Not a quip

It is almost always staged as a spoken retort delivered to someone. What exists is a printed text of contested authorship. Hélène Parmelin, who knew Picasso well, hedged precisely on this point when discussing the phrase — “si vraiment il l’a prononcée” (if he really said it) — as quoted by French Wikiquote ↗.

Quote collections and Russian Wikiquote No source at all

Most collections give no citation whatsoever. Russian Wikiquote ↗ lists “Я не ищу. Я нахожу.” under its heading for quotes without sources — ironic, given that the trail leads back to a Russian magazine.

“Picasso Speaks,” 1923 Wrong text

The line is often footnoted to the 1923 de Zayas interview. That interview is the authentic text — and it does not contain the famous four words. It has a related but longer sentence, “In my opinion to search means nothing in painting. To find is the thing,” at pp. 315–329 of The Arts, as Wikiquote’s sourced 1923 section ↗ shows. The compression into an epigram happens somewhere downstream of Picasso.

The earliest printing of the exact wording we could locate is Formes, no. 2, February 1930 ↗ — in French, translated from a Russian magazine piece published under Picasso’s name in 1926 that Pierre Daix judged a pirated rework of Picasso’s real 1923 interview.

Context

Why he said it

Picasso spent his career being called a chercheur — a searcher, a researcher, an experimenter forever hunting for the next thing. He hated the word, and this line is the rebuttal. He made the case at length rather than in four words, in the interview he gave Marius de Zayas in 1923: he could hardly understand the importance given to the word research in modern painting, and in his opinion to search means nothing in painting — to find is the thing. The 1930 French text carries the same argument, extended: that the spirit of research poisoned those who, failing to understand the positive side of modern painting, tried to paint the invisible, and that he tries to represent what he has found and not what he is looking for. Whether those extended words are his is the open question below.

What survived into circulation is the punchline with the argument stripped off, restaged as a spoken boast. Read in place, it is less arrogance than irritation — a painter refusing a label that made his finished work sound provisional.

“J’essaie de représenter ce que j’ai trouvé et non ce que je cherche.”

The broken chain, and why it matters

The route from Picasso to the English epigram runs through at least three languages and one document nobody can vouch for. A text published under Picasso’s name appeared in Russian in Ogoniok in Moscow in May 1926. In February 1930 the Paris review Formes printed extracts in French, translated from the Russian by C. Motchoulsky. The English “I do not seek. I find” is a later rendering of that French, with no translator’s name attached to it anywhere we could find.

The weak link is not the translating, it is the first step. Pierre Daix’s Dictionnaire Picasso (1995) treats the Ogoniok piece as an interview published by Gueorgui Iakoulov and calls it a pirated version of the 1923 de Zayas interview, laced with inventions; the French verification project Citations vérifiées reaches the same conclusion, calling it a fanciful montage assembled out of earlier statements. So the sharpest wording of Picasso’s most-quoted line may have been sharpened by someone who was not Picasso — and a four-word aphorism is exactly the shape that survives, and rewards, that kind of handling.

None of which makes the citation fringe: French Wikiquote cites the passage to Formes and to Picasso, Propos sur l’art, edited by Marie-Laure Bernadac and Androula Michael (Gallimard, 1998), the standard collected edition of Picasso’s own statements — while attaching Daix’s warning to it. The line has been quoted in English since at least Graham Sutherland’s 1936 essay in Signature, which is the single English source Wikiquote cites for it. A widely reprinted text and an authentic one are different things, and this is the gap between them.

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Pablo Picasso — Wikiquote (English)en.wikiquote.org

Files “Yo no busco, yo encuentro / I do not seek, I find” in its Disputed section, citing Graham Sutherland, “A Trend in English Draughtsmanship,” Signature III (1936). Also carries the sourced 1923 “Picasso Speaks” statement.
Pablo Picasso — Wikiquote (French)fr.wikiquote.org

Cites “On me prend d’habitude pour un chercheur. Je ne cherche pas, je trouve” to “Lettre sur l’art,” Formes, February 1930, p. 3 — and attaches the note that, per Pierre Daix, the interview published by Gueorgui Iakoulov “est une reprise piratée et émaillée d’inventions” of the 1923 de Zayas interview.
Formes, no. 2 (February 1930) — digitisedgallica.bnf.fr

The Bibliothèque nationale de France scan of the issue containing “Lettre sur l’art par Picasso.” BnF’s own full-text search locates the sentence on the page 3 image.
Пабло Пикассо — Wikiquote (Russian)ru.wikiquote.org

Lists “Я не ищу. Я нахожу.” among quotes filed as being without sources — a useful measure of how unmoored the line has become.
The Arts, vols. 3–4 (1923)books.google.com

The New York magazine volume that carries “Picasso Speaks,” edited by Marius de Zayas, at pp. 315–329 — the authentic 1923 statement in which Picasso says that to search means nothing in painting.
Pierre Daix, Dictionnaire Picasso (1995)archive.org

The reference work in which Daix identifies the 1926 Ogoniok interview, published by Gueorgui Iakoulov, as a pirated and invention-laced reworking of the 1923 de Zayas interview (pp. 329–330, 488, 914). This is the finding French Wikiquote attaches to the Formes citation.
“Je ne cherche pas” — Citations vérifiéescitationsverifiees.fr

A French quote-verification project that calls the Formes text “un montage fantaisiste réalisé à partir de précédentes déclarations,” places the passage at pp. 2 and 5 of the issue, and concludes the condensed four-word phrase is probably not Picasso’s.
Picasso, Propos sur l’art (Gallimard, 1998)openlibrary.org

Catalogue record for the standard collected edition of Picasso’s own statements, edited by Marie-Laure Bernadac and Androula Michael, which French Wikiquote cites as reprinting “Lettre sur l’art.”

The true author

Who Picasso was

Pablo Picasso

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

Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter and sculptor who spent most of his adult life in France, and who pioneered Cubism alongside Georges Braque. He was also one of the most heavily interviewed artists who ever lived, and much of what circulates as his “philosophy” comes to us secondhand — through interviewers, friends’ memoirs, and translations. He disliked being described as a searcher or experimenter, and the documented text behind this quote is his sustained argument against that word.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

“Lettre sur l’art par Picasso,” trans. from the Russian by C. Motchoulsky, Formes: revue internationale des arts plastiques, no. 2 (February 1930): 3 (Citations vérifiées gives pp. 2, 5). Presented by the editors as extracts from a letter signed by Picasso, reprinted from Ogoniok (Moscow), no. 20, 16 May 1926 — but Pierre Daix, Dictionnaire Picasso (1995), 329–330, 488, 914, identifies that publication as a pirated, invention-laced reworking of Picasso’s 1923 interview with Marius de Zayas. English Wikiquote lists the English form, “I do not seek, I find,” in its Disputed section.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I do not seek. I find’?” Last verified 27 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-do-not-seek-i-find/

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