Karel Appel

KAREL APPEL (Netherlands, 1921 – Switzerland, 2006).
“Running Horse,” 1979.
Lithograph, H.C. edition (unique).
Signed and inscribed by hand in graphite.
Measurements: 55 x 75 cm.

Karel Appel’s work stood out for its chromatic intensity and the impasto of the paint. Classified as grotesque expressionism—which manifested itself not so much in the composition (he never wanted to openly venture into abstraction) as in the technique—Appel’s artistic language was based on an aggressive and provocative character and, at the same time, on a childlike simplicity linked to Surrealism.

Karel Appel was a painter, sculptor, and graphic artist, and is currently considered the most dynamic artist of his country’s postwar generation. In 1948, together with Corneille, Jorn, and Alechinsku, he founded the CoBrA International Group, which played a decisive role in the development and expansion of European automatism during the 1940s and 1950s. During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Appel wandered throughout the country to avoid being sent to work in Germany. In 1946, he held his first solo exhibition in Groningen, where the influence of Dubuffet—with whom he would come to share certain theoretical concepts—was already evident. His first sculptures, dating from 1947, were pioneering works in the assemblage of scrap materials. Some artists, rejecting the rigidity and sectarianism of the Surrealist movement, founded the CoBrA group (an acronym for Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam—the cities from which Appel, Corneille, and Constant hailed, and who, along with Jorn, Noiret, and Dotremont, signed the inaugural manifesto). The CoBrA painters sought a more spontaneous style of work that drew on local cultural traditions and incorporated fantastical imagery. The group disbanded soon after, in 1951, but some of its members—particularly Appel, Jorn, and Alechinsky—kept its spirit alive in the decades that followed. Their painting is characterized by a strong expressionist influence linked to the figures of Max Pechstein and Edward Munich, two of the great Nordic Expressionists. Their work features dense impasto and bold interplay of colors, reflecting the turbulent nature of Nordic Expressionism. Later, their artistic language evolved toward a softer style, drawing closer to Hand Edge Painting. Appel was a tireless artist who explored multiple media, ranging from sculpture and ceramics to mural painting, stained glass, and printmaking. Throughout his long artistic career, he received numerous awards and collaborated with artists from other disciplines, such as the poet Allen Ginsberg and the choreographer Min Tanaka. His first successes came in 1953, with an exhibition at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and his participation in the São Paulo Biennial (he would return in 1959 and win the international painting prize), and in 1954, when he received the UNESCO Prize at the Venice Biennale and exhibited in Paris and New York. Appel’s work is represented at the Guggenheim Museum and MoMA in New York, the Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts, the Tate Gallery in London, the Albertina in Vienna, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Dordrecht, among many others.