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Flying Fish, 1971 by Karel Appel

Artwork by Karel Appel, Flying Fish, 1971

Karel Appel
Flying Fish, 1971

polychrome enameled aluminium
stamped with the artist's name and dated "March 1971" on the base. Executed by Lippincott Company, North Haven, Connecticut
46 x 61 x 17 in ( 116.8 x 154.9 x 43.2 cm ) ( overall with the base )

Auction Estimate: $15,000.00$12,000.00 - $15,000.00

Price Realized $26,400.00
Sale date: November 27th 2024

Provenance:
Gallery Moos, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto
Exhibited:
"Appel's Appels," Musée d'art contemporain, Montreal, April-May 1972, no. 69
As one of the most illustrious Dutch artists of the twentieth century, Karel Appel is celebrated today for his vibrant, stylistic experimentation across a variety of mediums. His works are whimsical, created using a gestural application of paint, deriving from a combination of children’s art, primitive art and folk art. This sculpture represents a colourful fish in shades of blue, purple, yellow, orange, and black. The tones are repeated throughout the work, thus inviting viewers to trace all the different planes of the interconnected aluminum sheets. "Flying Fish" captures the essence of the CoBrA group, whose art was characterized by intensely figurative content drawn from the unconscious mind and expressed in radiant primary tones.

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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.