Born in Amsterdam in 1921, Karel Appel studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. In reaction against the formal and conventional traditions of the de Stijl movement, Appel established the artist collective CoBrA, which stood for Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam - the cities that the artists originated from. CoBrA aimed to create bold, expressive work that was inspired by folk art and children’s drawings. Appel liked that children created artwork on instinct and thought that artists should try to instil more spontaneity into their work. His figures came from his imagination and he compared them to the creatures that we dream of at night. Appel’s early influences were Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Jean Dubuffet. In 1949 Appel created a fresco for the cafeteria in the city hall in Amsterdam that caused such a scandal that it was covered for the next ten years. Appel left Amsterdam to move to Paris in 1950, where he was introduced to the art critic, Michel Tapié, who organized a number of exhibitions of Appel’s work. His style is distinguished by his crude figures, thick layering of paint and expressive brushwork. He was also a prolific sculptor and his work is featured in the MoMA and many other international museums. In 1972 a retrospective of Appel’s work toured Canada and the United States.
