Additional Images

Provenance:

Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Evelyn Aimis Fine Art, Toronto, ON
Private Collection, Toronto, ON

Note:

Appel’s works are widely considered to embody the spirit of post-war European art, characterised by bold use of colour, expressive brushwork and a style inspired by folk art, outsider art, and children’s drawings. Appel’s involvement with CoBrA, an avant-garde movement he founded in 1948 along with Asger Jorn, Constant, and Corneille, brought attention to the young artist’s work in both Europe and North America.

Though CoBrA disbanded in 1951, its spontaneous and colourful aesthetic has been credited with reinvigorating Dutch modern art and inspiring subsequent generations of artists. The playful spirit it promoted has also characterised Appel’s subsequent career, emblematized by thick impasto, energetic spontaneity, saturated colour and human or animal subjects. Appel recalls how formative the group was for him: "The CoBrA group started new, and first of all we threw away all these things we had known and started afresh, like a child – fresh and new. Sometimes my works look very childish, or childlike, schizophrenic or stupid, you know. But that was the good thing for me. Because, for me, the material is the paint itself. The paint expresses itself. In the mass of paint, I find my imagination and go on to paint it."[1]

The 1960s marked a period of decline and tragedy for Appel, when painting went out of fashion and his second wife, Machteld, passed away. But Appel and his irrepressible style could not be kept down long – he remarried his third and last wife, began working again, and signed on with art dealer Annina Nosei, who also represented Jean-Michel Basquiat. Appel would find fresh inspiration in the flattened aesthetics of Pop Art, which he reinterpreted using his signature style.

Untitled (Head), 1973 recalls Appel’s early, playful interpretations of the wounded, human psyche while reviving interest in the two-dimensional medium of painting. The large swaths of mostly primary colours emphasize Appel’s childlike aesthetics, which are further heightened by the flat application of the acrylic paint on paper.

[1] Margalit Fox. “Karel Appel, Dutch Expressionist Painter, Dies at 85.” The New York Times, May 9, 2006. Accessed April 2, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/arts/design/karel-appel-dutch-expressionist-painter-dies-at-85.html