- Appel, Karel
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Dutch painter, sculptor, and graphic artist.He attended Amsterdam's Royal Academy of Fine Arts (1940–43) and was cofounder of the COBRA group of northern European Expressionists. In 1950 he moved to Paris; by the 1960s he had settled in New York City. An exponent of expressive abstraction, he developed a painting style characterized by thick layering of pigment, violent colour and brushwork, and crude, reductive figures. His figurative sculptures are executed in metal and wood. He painted portraits of jazz musicians and a number of public works, including a mural in the Paris UNESCO building.
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▪ 2007Dutch painter and sculptor (b. April 25, 1921, Amsterdam, Neth.—d. May 3, 2006, Zürich, Switz.), was a cofounder (1948) of the short-lived but highly influential COBRA, or CoBrA, group of northern European Expressionists. Appel's turbulent, colourful, and semiabstract compositions were characterized by thick layering of pigment, violent brushwork, and a crude, reductive figuration. He was also a noted sculptor and graphic artist; his figurative sculptures in wood and metal shared with the paintings a brutal, imaginative expressionism. Appel attended (1940–43) the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Amsterdam, and had his first solo exhibition in 1946. While in Paris in 1948, he joined with several other artists to found the Reflex group, which became known as COBRA (for Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam, their home cities). Partly in reaction against what they perceived as the sterile academicism of the De Stijl movement, the COBRA artists assimilated a variety of more impulsive influences, including folk art, children's art, and l'art brut (“raw art”) of Jean Dubuffet, while maintaining a degree of representation. Appel exhibited with other COBRA members, but by the early 1950s the individuals had gone their own ways. In 1957 he visited the U.S., where he painted portraits of prominent jazz musicians, including Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. By the 1960s Appel had settled in New York City; he later lived in Italy and Switzerland.* * *
▪ Dutch painterborn April 25, 1921, Amsterdam, Neth.died May 3, 2006, Zürich, Switz.Dutch painter of turbulent, colourful, and semiabstract compositions, who was a cofounder (1948) of the COBRA group of northern European Expressionists. He was also a noted sculptor and graphic artist.Appel attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Amsterdam (1940–43), and helped found the “Reflex” group, which became known as COBRA (for Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam), in 1948. He moved to Paris in 1950 and by the 1960s had settled in New York City; he later lived in Italy and Switzerland. Partly in reaction against what they perceived as the sterile academicism of the de Stijl (Stijl, De) movement, the COBRA artists assimilated a variety of more-impulsive influences, including folk art, children's art, and l'art brut (“raw art”) of Jean Dubuffet (Dubuffet, Jean). They exploited the spontaneity and intensity of the contemporary American Action painting while maintaining a degree of representation. Appel's style is characterized by thick layering of pigment, violent brushwork, and a crude, reductive figuration.Appel first visited the United States in 1957, where he painted portraits of prominent jazz musicians, including Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. His public works include a mural in the UNESCO building in Paris. His figurative sculptures in wood and metal share with the paintings a brutal, imaginative expressionism.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
