Karel Appel

Karel Appel – Rift with the parents, foundation of the artist group CoBrA

Karel Appel was born in Amsterdam on 25 April 1921. His family had wished him to take on his father’s barbershop, but young Karel already had other ideas and enrolled without further ado in 1942 at the Rijksacademie voor Beeldende Kunsten – whereupon his parents did not hesitate to throw him out of the house. He was later reproached several times for studying during the German occupation, but the artist vehemently insisted that his interest had only been in a good education and that any political engagement had been alien to him. During his studies, Appel met the painters Constant and Corneille with whom he brought the artists’ association Nederlands Experimentele Groep to life. Although Appel had already made attempts at sculpture, his sculptures made of scrap were not very well received. He had more success with abstract, colour-intensive paintings, with the creation of which Karel Appel inevitably moved towards the founding of the artist collective CoBrA, named after the hometowns of its protagonists: Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam, the birthplace of Appel, who quickly became the most important representative of the association. Alongside his friends Constant and Corneille, the driving forces also included Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn and Joseph Noiret.

Resistance at home, breakthrough abroad

Karel Appel was greatly influenced at the beginning by the art of Jean Dubuffet, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Despite early successes, his painting style often met with controversy; even the early mural Questioning Children, created for the canteen of Amsterdam’s town hall, caused great irritation and protests. The abstract style was said to be reminiscent of childish scrawls, and the picture was eventually wallpapered over – only ten years later did they dare to unveil it a second time. The artist himself had long since moved to Paris and made his international breakthrough in 1953 at the São Paolo Biennale. There he won the International Painting Prize and subsequently participated twice in Documenta in Kassel, with success. Even after the dissolution of CoBrA, he never shook off the avant-garde influence and remained faithful to an expressive, spontaneous and often ironic pictorial language. 

Karel Appel - at ease in the eye of the colour storm

Karel Appel was still extremely productive as an artist into old age and completed numerous commissions. The painter once claimed that he “couldn’t care less” about his painting style, throwing the paint in front of him with brush and palette knife, sometimes only with bare hands, and once even whole pots. He painted like a barbarian in barbaric times, Appel had declared at the beginning of his career in 1948. In the meantime, however, art critics have long since recognised the subtlety of the blustering storm of colour and form and are devoting well-deserved attention to the entire oeuvre of this equally unique and idiosyncratic artist.  

Karel Appel died on 3 May 2006 in Zurich.