Karel Appel

(1921-2006) 

A Dutch painter, born in Amsterdam, Appel studied at the Academy in Amsterdam and had his first show in Groningen, 1946. His early work was influenced by Picasso, Matisse, and Dubuffet. In 1948, with Corneille and Constant, he founded the experimental group and magazine Reflex, which soon thereafter merged with the Cobra movement. It was in Paris, where he had an exhibition in 1949 and took up residence in 1950, that Appel truly mastered his creative powers. He worked freely with color, which he applied in thick blotches as a reaction against the geometric Academicism inherited from neoplasticism, and his subject matter was both broad-ranging and powerful.

Museum of Moderner Kunst, Vienna, Austria
Musee Roaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium
Museo de Arte Contemporanea da Universidade de Sao Paolo, Brazil
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris, France
Foundation Van Gogh, Arles, France
Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
Kunsthalle, Bremen, Germany
National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel
Collezione Peggy Guggenheim, Venice, Italy
National Museum of Art, Oaska, Japan
Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico
Tate Modern, London, England
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, California
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Buffalo Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.