Karel Appel (1921-2006)

CoBrA, originating from the “Experimentele Groep”, was established in Paris in 1948 by a group of enthusiastic young artists. The initiators included Asger Jorn from Denmark, Pierre Alechinsky from Belgium and Karel Appel  and Constant from the Netherlands. Having suffered from the terrors of  the Second World War they cried also for artistic freedom. In 1948 Constant wrote: “a painting no longer is a structure of colours and lines, but a beast, a night, a cry, a person, or all of that together” (Manifesto in Reflex, 8 October).

In the same year Karel Appel painted Cry for Freedom (Vrijheidschreeuw) to be considered as the symbol of the entire movement (Sale Sotheby’s Amsterdam 30^th May 1995, lot 65, sold for Dfl.425.000 hammer), with its pure red, green, blue and yellow colours strongly reminiscent of Asger Jorn’s works during the final years of the war.

In artistic respect one can also see that Karel Appel at that time was strongly influenced by Picasso and Miro CoBrA became synonymous with a powerful expressionist artistic trend combining figurative and abstract tendencies.

Karel Appel and his contemporaries found inspiration in the drawings of children, the mentally ill and the primitive, unspoiled cultures. Appel and others CoBrA artists sought the images of our fantasy, hidden in our subconscious. They created their images influenced by the theories of Carl Jung. In 1950, Karel Appel visited in Paris the exhibition held after the “Congrès International de Psychiatrie”. He bought the catalogue and illustrated it spontaneously .

The subject matter of children are very important elements in Karel Appel’s work of the early fifties. Their seemingly simplicity makes us regard them as clichés, representing the emptiness of the violence in with the stereotype becomes clear.