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Untitled, 1959 by Karel Appel

Artwork by Karel Appel, Untitled, 1959

Karel Appel
Untitled, 1959

colour lithograph
signed lower right; numbered 103/200 lower left
15 x 19 ins ( 38.1 x 48.3 cms ) ( sight )

Auction Estimate: $700.00$500.00 - $700.00

Price Realized $480.00
Sale date: February 28th 2023

Provenance:
Private Collection, Montreal
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.

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Karel Appel
(1921 - 2006)

HighlightsWatch Artist

Born on April 25, 1921, in Amsterdam, Karel Appel studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten and, in 1946, held his first solo show at Het Beerenhuis, Groningen, and participated in Jonge Schilders (Young painters) at the Stedelijk Museum.

Appel drew primarily inspiration from the artists Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Jean Dubuffet. In 1948, he was a member of the Nederlandse Experimentele Groep (Dutch Experimental Group) before establishing the avant-garde movement CoBrA, with Constant Nieuwenhuys, Corneille (Guillaume Cornelis Beverloo), and other painters from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. Their unique style challenged abstraction and Surrealism, featuring bold, expressive compositions inspired by children’s doodles and folk art.

Following the group’s disbanding in 1951, Appel travelled extensively and pursued his career between Paris and New York. In 1954, he held his first gallery exhibition in the United States, and the following year, one of his paintings was included in the seminal group exhibition The New Decade at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, displaying his work alongside those by Francis Bacon, Pierre Soulages and Jean Dubuffet. Over time, his practice expanded to include sculpture, screen printing, stained glass and poetry, which continued until his death in Zürich on May 3, 2006.

Today, Appel’s works can be found in various major museums, including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova in Turku, Finland, and The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.