Karel Appel

KAREL APPEL (Netherlands, 1921 – Switzerland, 2006).
Untitled, 1991.
Etching and aquatint, print no. 20/50.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Measurements: 54 x 39 cm (print); 85 x 65 cm (paper).

Although the CoBrA group disbanded in 1951, Appel remained true to the principles that defined it throughout his career: an impulsive style of painting, free from academic conventions and inspired by children’s art, folk art, and primitive forms. In this 1991 etching, the figure is reduced to a set of dynamic signs and pure colors that convey an intense emotional charge, demonstrating how the artist was able to translate into the techniques of etching and aquatint the same vital and gestural energy that characterizes his canvases.

Karel Appel was one of the most influential European artists of the second half of the 20th century and one of the founders of the CoBrA movement, an avant-garde group formed in 1948 alongside Asger Jorn, Constant Nieuwenhuys, Corneille, and Christian Dotremont. Trained at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, he rejected academicism from the outset to develop a spontaneous, intuitive, and deeply expressive language inspired by children’s art, folk art, and artistic expressions considered “primitive.” His famous statement, “I don’t paint, I hit,” sums up the physical and emotional intensity of his creative process. After CoBrA disbanded in 1951, Appel settled in Paris, where he launched a brilliant international career. His painting evolved into a gestural expressionism of great material force, characterized by the use of intense colors, energetic brushstrokes, and human and animal figures with an almost totemic appearance. In addition to painting, he successfully pursued sculpture, ceramics, drawing, printmaking, and set design, always maintaining an extraordinary formal freedom. His work achieved widespread international recognition and was exhibited at leading institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Guggenheim Museum, among many others. Today he is considered a key figure in postwar European Expressionism and one of the artists who best embodied the innovative spirit of the international avant-garde following World War II.