About Karel Appel
Karel Appel, born in Amsterdam, was a Dutch sculptor and painter. In the period following World War II (after 1945) he helped to pioneer a physical, unrestrained style of painting in Europe. His work was combined by a touch of childlike figures distinguished by violent colors and thick paint application.
Karel Appel studied from 1940 to 1943 at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. After the war in the Netherlands, the expressive work of French artist Jean Dubuffet drew his attention. This primitive imagery style was a big contrast with the more geometric, more formal work that was in Europe at the time. In 1946, he was included in an exhibition entitled Young Artists at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum. This is when Karel Appel first aroused public interest.
Appel helped in 1948 to form an experimental group called Cobra, this together with a Belgian artist Pierre Alechinsky, a Danish artist Asger Jorn and the Dutch artist Corneille.
Finding inspiration in children's drawings, in folk art and prehistoric art, Cobra glorified instinct and opposed rigorously intellectual approaches to art, aims it held in common with a similar movement in the United States, abstract expressionism. Karel Appel was commissioned in 1949 to paint a mural. This mural was for the cafetaria of the City Hall of Amsterdam. He made a painting of bitterly smiling children in wild colors. The employees who took their meals there were so disturbed that the City Council had to order to cover it over, this despite protest by the artistic community.
Appel became well known for his stormy and humorous painting style in 1950 when he moved to Paris, France. In 1954 Karel Appel was awarded the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) prize at the Venice Biennale exhibition. The first prize at the Guggenheim International exhibition was given in 1960 to him.
He began working with three-dimensional forms late in the 1960's. He began to live and work part of each year in New York City in 1972. In 1982 he collaborated with American poet Allen Ginsberg on a colorful series of paintings and visual poems. Karel Appel created sculptures combining plaster, wood and found objects since 1990.
Biography of Karel Appel
Karel Appel, born in Amsterdam, was a Dutch sculptor and painter. In the period following World War II (after 1945) he helped to pioneer a physical, unrestrained style of painting in Europe. His work was combined by a touch of childlike figures distinguished by violent colors and thick paint application.
Karel Appel studied from 1940 to 1943 at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. After the war in the Netherlands, the expressive work of French artist Jean Dubuffet drew his attention. This primitive imagery style was a big contrast with the more geometric, more formal work that was in Europe at the time. In 1946, he was included in an exhibition entitled Young Artists at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum. This is when Karel Appel first aroused public interest.
Appel helped in 1948 to form an experimental group called Cobra, this together with a Belgian artist Pierre Alechinsky, a Danish artist Asger Jorn and the Dutch artist Corneille.
Finding inspiration in children's drawings, in folk art and prehistoric art, Cobra glorified instinct and opposed rigorously intellectual approaches to art, aims it held in common with a similar movement in the United States, abstract expressionism. Karel Appel was commissioned in 1949 to paint a mural. This mural was for the cafetaria of the City Hall of Amsterdam. He made a painting of bitterly smiling children in wild colors. The employees who took their meals there were so disturbed that the City Council had to order to cover it over, this despite protest by the artistic community.
Appel became well known for his stormy and humorous painting style in 1950 when he moved to Paris, France. In 1954 Karel Appel was awarded the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) prize at the Venice Biennale exhibition. The first prize at the Guggenheim International exhibition was given in 1960 to him.
He began working with three-dimensional forms late in the 1960's. He began to live and work part of each year in New York City in 1972. In 1982 he collaborated with American poet Allen Ginsberg on a colorful series of paintings and visual poems. Karel Appel created sculptures combining plaster, wood and found objects since 1990.