ARTISTS SPEAK began in the summer of 1983 when Howard Kanovitz, artist and trustee of The Victor D’Amico Institute of Art, organized the first talks and arranged with Fraser Dougherty and his newly formed public access television company, LTV, to film the events. The inaugural series was held at The Neighborhood House in East Hampton and included Jimmy Ernst, Howard Kanovitz, Elaine de Kooning, Larry Rivers, and Syd Solomon. It proved to be a popular art event, filling the space for each talk. Its success propelled a move in 1986 to the larger more centrally located space of the East Hampton Middle School auditorium in the village of East Hampton, where the series was presented through 1988. The series was revived in 2013 as a mid-week evening event held on-site at The Art Barge on the shore of Napeague Harbor in Amagansett. LTV continues to film the talks and a complete video collection to date is archived at the LTV Studios, a selection of which is available online through ltveh.org.

Past ARTISTS SPEAK guests have included: