Lot 74 D

For Karel Appel, the painting process is an event of complete spontaneity, an uninhibited, energy-loaded bodily action which takes place completely in the here and now. “The living primary colours are the first step to losing the 'self' for me, to the loss and oblivion of my self and my surroundings. In the moment that my ego is washed away and must forgo its activity and intellectual footing, the meaning of what is still unconscious and uncreated, the mute non-form entity, appears with the semblance of infantile schizophrenia. From there the undefinable begins, takes shape”, so the artist described his process in 1979 (Karel Appel, quoted from exhib.cat. Künstler der Gruppen COBRA und SPUR. Sammlung Selinka, Schloss Achberg et al., 1998, p.46).
From 1971, Appel lived for ever longer periods in New York. Here he took up influences from American Pop Art, which casually found their way into his work. In the 1970s, the artist concentrated on themes of the human figure and faces whereby he continued to playfully navigate between abstraction and objectivity. In “Personnage”, a human physiognomy is carved out of opposing areas of colour in strong tonal contrasts. The face, hinted at with sweeping lines, dissolves into the surrounding patches of colour, and other figural elements such as the hair or an oversized collar can be read into the composition.