Birds over the Village
Karel Appel, Dutch (1921- 2006)
Christiaan Karel Appel, as has his full name was, was born in his parents' house at 7 Dapperstraat, Amsterdam. On the ground floor, his father, Jan Appel, had a barber shop. His mother, born Johanna Chevalier, was a descendant of French Huguenots. Karel Appel had three brothers.
At fourteen, Appel produced his first real painting, on canvas, a still life of a fruit basket. For his fifteenth birthday, his wealthy uncle Karel Chevalier gave him a paint set and an easel. An avid amateur painter himself, Chevalier gave his namesake some lessons in painting.
19 years old he is admitted to the Rijks-Academie in Amsterdam, where he study from 1940 to 1943.
In 1946 his first solo show was held in Groningen, the Netherlands, and he participated in the Jonge Schilders exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam. About this time Appel was influenced first by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, then by Jean Dubuffet. In 1948 Karel Appel founded Nederlandse Experimentele Group together with among others Constant, Corneille and Eugene Brands, and later that year he was one of six who signed the manifest of the COBRA movement in Paris.
Beside his large production of paintings Karel Appel can add graphic works and illustrations, sculptures, ceramic works and large decorations of buildings and rooms. With his colors and childish lines Karel Appel seduces most of us, because we recognize the childhood and the fantasy in his pictures. His unspoiled motifs of children and animals in this period are depicted with strong and bright colors surrounded by sharp black outlines. While the motifs stands the way of expression are replaced in the beginning of the fifthties by a more freely and more emotional way. The quantities of paint too are used more unrestrained, and for a period he paints almost three-dimensional paintings.
Børge Birch, who was friend with Asger Jorn before COBRA, is introduced to Appel and they form a partnership which leads to several exhibitions - solo in 1949-71-83 and many mixed exhibitions alongside many of his COBRA- friends. Karel Appels work is exhibited in many gallerys in USA and all over Europe as well his work is represented in the finest museums in the world.
Dutch-born Karel Appel was part of the original CoBrA group (Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam) whose works were characterized by bold expressionist forms and raw, intense colors. From 1940 to 1943 Appel studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. By 1951, when he painted a mural for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, he had earned an important place in the art world. His sculpture, paintings, and prints, thickly layered with color, have a childlike quality about them, but new possibilities present themselves at each viewing.
He was awarded the UNESCO Prize at the 27th International Biennale in Venice, and the first prize at the Guggenheim International Exhibition in New York in 1960. He has exhibited in galleries worldwide and is represented in the collections of major museums in the United States, Canada, England, France, and Holland.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Guggenheim Museum New York
SELECTED AWARDS
He received the UNESCO Prize at the Venice Biennale of 1954
Graphics prize at the Ljubljana Biennial in Yugoslavia
International Prize for Painting at the São Paulo Bienal
Awarded anin
John Solomon Guggenheim Fellowship Award - New York, USA
Post War Inventory
- Karel Appel Personnages et Oiseaux II
- Karel Appel Personage and Landscape
- Richard Artschwagger Untitled (Levi's Painting), 1981
- Ruth Lanier Asawa Untitled
- Ruth Asawa Untitled
- Pablo Atchugarry Untitled
- Bernard Aubertin Tableau Clous
- Milton Avery Vincent Spano
- Milton Avery Blue Nude
- Afro Basaldella Untitled
- William Baziotes Figures Against the Sun
- William Baziotes Untitled
- Leon Berkowitz Algonquit No 15
- Norman Bluhm Untitled (Blue and Black)
- Norman Bluhm Untitled (Purple and Black)
- Norman Bluhm Untitled (Red and Black)
- Norman Bluhm Untitled (blue and Black)
- Norman Bluhm Untitled (Pink and Black)
- Norman Bluhm Untitled, 1
- Norman Bluhm Untitled
- Norman Bluhm Fifth Season
- Norman Bluhm In tThe Earth
- Norman Bluhm Ash Hollow
- Norman Bluhm Steel Grass
- Norman Bluhm Untitled
- Norman Bluhm Coelus II
- Norman Bluhm Turkish Delight
- Mel Bochner Chuckle
- James Brooks Zog
- James Brooks Untitled
- Alexander Calder Construction with Stripes
- Alexander Calder Black Compass
- Alexander Calder Boomerang Night
- Alexander Calder Untitled
- Alexander Calder Narning Needles and Rattler
- Alexander Calder Butterfly and Serpent
- Alexander Calder Ciel d'Egypt, 1975
- Massimo Campigli Untitled
- Nicholas Carone Untitled
- Giorgio Cavallon Untitled
- ED Clark Moroccan Series
- Allan D'Arcangelo Proposition #8
- Allan D'Arcangelo Landscape
- Gene Davis Pinocchio
- Gene Davis Untitled
- Willem DeKooning Untitled ( Woman)
- Willem DeKooning Untitled
- Jim Dine A Crescent Wrench
- Jim Dine Heart in a Landscape
- Friedel Dzubas Night Flight
- Friedel Dzubas Sungod
- Friedel Dzubas Aurora
- Friedel Dzubas Up Delta
- Friedel Dzubas Roundabout
- Mark Flood Decorations on Her Body
- Sam Francis Untitled (SFP94-80),
- Sam Francis Untitled (SF62-0200
- Sam Francis Untitled (SF92-9), 1993
- Sam Francis Untitled - SF90-171,
- Sam Francis Untitled - SF89-112
- Sam Francis Untitled (Tokyo Series)
- Helen Frankenthaler Untitled (Purple and Black)
- Helen Frankenthaler Summer'59 Number 1
- Helen Frankenthaler Hope Spring
- Michael Goldberg Untitled
- Michael Goldberg Still Life with Tiffany Lamp
- Michael Goldberg Untitled
- Michael Goldberg Our Delight
- Ron Gorchov Capital
- John Grillo Untitled
- Peter Halley Untitled
- Al Held Primo 6
- Damien Hirst Crushung Pain
- Hans Hofmann Serenity
- Hans Hofmann Red Triangle
- Hans Hofmann On The Pier
- Hans Hofmann Untitled
- Hans Hofmann Zig Zag
- Paul Jenkins Phenomena Hokusai Fall
- Paul Jenkins Phenomena Ultra Scape
- Ellsworth Kelly Colored Paper Image XII (Blue Curve with Brown and Gray),
- Yayoi Kusama Chikuma River
- Alfred Leslie Number 5
- Roy Lichtenstein Reflections on Minerva
- Pat Lipsky Chinese
- Conrad Marca-Relli The Dressmaker
- Conrad Marca-Relli Untitled #4
- Conrad Marca-Relli Battle Detail
- Conrad Marca-Relli F-S-8-67
- Conrad Marca-Relli L-3-72
- Georges Mathieu Lothaire Sort Secretment De Leon
- Robert Motherwell In Blue Ochre with Gauloises
- Robert Motherwell Untitled
- Robert Motherwell Little A
- Robert Motherwell Summer Collage
- Robert Motherwell Sea Lion with Red Stripe
- Louise Nevelson Untitled (Moon Plant),
- Louise Nevelson Series of Unknown Cosmos XXXIX
- Louise Nevelson Untitled, 1974
- Gaston Novelli A.5
- Claes Oldenburg Punching Bag
- Jules Olitski Fi
- Jules Olitski Salacion Touch-3
- Abraham Palatnik Untitled
- Richard Pettibone Harran III
- Arnoldo Pomodoro Pillars in Amaliehaven
- Larry Poons Untitled #1
- Richard Pousette-Dart Small Dark Room
- Richard Pousette-Dart Serpentine Saffron
- Milton Resnick Untitled
- Larry Rivvers Iron Maiden (Ford Fender)
- James Rosenquist Blue Light Bulb Beer Can 1/2 Eye Glass Lens
- Mimmo Rotella Ars-Gratis-Artis
- Julian Schnabel La Hija Pequeña, la Madrastra y el Amigo Mariquita, (The Little Daughter, The Stepmother and the Friend Ladybug
- Sean Scully 9.1.96
- Turi Simeti Un Ovale Rosso
- Theodoros Stamos Field I
- Theodoros Stamos Infinity Field, Lefkada Series
- Theodoros Stamos Lefkada Series
- Theodoros Stamos Mistra
- Theodoros Stamos Untitled (From the High Snow, Low Sun Series)
- Theodoros Stamos Aegean Sunbox # 12
- Theodoros Stamos Classic Yellow Sun-Box
- Frank Stella The Honor and Glory of Whaling (Maquette)
- Frank Stella Nowe Miastro
- Donald Sultan Peppers
- Bob Thompson The Struggle
- Julius Tobias Untitled
- Esteban Vicente Luminous
- Andy Warhol Ali Fist
- Andy Warhol Flowers
- Andy Warhol Cup of Coffee
- Tom Wesselmann Maquette for Tulip and Smoking Cigarette, 1983
- Tom Wesselmann Monica Asleep on Blanket
- Michael (Corinne) West Green Apple
- Michael (Corinne) West Nihilism
- Michael (Corinne) West Study
- Michael (Corinne) West The Atonement
- MIchael West Untitled
- Michael West Still Life Objects
- Michael West Theorem Duty
- MIchael West Continuity of Change
- MIchael West Dagger of Light