Karel Appel, Animal with Sun Head, Circa 1980

Description

Artist: Karel Appel (Dutch, 1921-2006)
Title: Fantastic Animal with Sun Head
Year: Circa 1980
Medium: Color lithograph
Edition: Inscribed A.P … more Artist: Karel Appel (Dutch, 1921-2006)
Title: Fantastic Animal with Sun Head
Year: Circa 1980
Medium: Color lithograph
Edition: Inscribed A.P (Artist proof)
Paper: Wove
Image size: 21 x 29 inches
Paper size: 21 x 29 inches
Framed size: 36.5 x 43.75 inches
Signature: Hand signed in pencil by the artist
Condition: The artwork is in excellent condition. The frame have minor scratches, barely visible.
Frame: Custom framed in a wooden silver frame, with silver color bevel and fabric matting.

About the artist.


Christiaan Karel Appel, as has his full name was, was born in his parents' house at 7 Dapperstraat, Amsterdam. On the ground floor, his father, Jan Appel, had a barber shop. His mother, born Johanna Chevalier, was a descendant of French Huguenots.
At fourteen, Appel produced his first painting, on canvas, a still life of a fruit basket. For his fifteenth birthday, his wealthy uncle gave him a paint set and an easel. 19 years old he is admitted to the Rijks-Academie in Amsterdam, where he study from 1940 to 1943.
In 1946 his first solo show was held in Groningen, the Netherlands, and he participated in the Jonge Schilders exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam. About this time Appel was influenced first by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, then by Jean Dubuffet. In 1948 Karel Appel founded Nederlandse Experimentele Group together with among others Constant, Corneille and Eugene Brands, and later that year he was one of six who signed the document of the COBRA movement in Paris.
Beside his large production of paintings Karel Appel can add graphic works and illustrations, sculptures, ceramic works and large decorations of buildings and rooms. His unspoiled motifs of children and animals in this period are depicted with strong and bright colors surrounded by sharp black outlines. Børge Birch, who was friend with Asger Jorn before COBRA, is introduced to Appel and they form a partnership which leads to several exhibitions - solo in 1949-71-83 and many mixed exhibitions alongside many of his COBRA- friends. Karel Appel's work is exhibited in many galleries in USA and all over Europe as well his work is represented in the finest museums in the world.
Karel Appel was part of the original Cobra group (Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam) whose works were characterized by bold expressionist forms and raw, intense colors. From 1940 to 1943 Appel studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. By 1951, when he painted a mural for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, he had earned an important place in the art world. He was awarded the UNESCO Prize at the 27th International Biennale in Venice, and the first prize at the Guggenheim International Exhibition in New York in 1960. He has exhibited in galleries worldwide and is represented in the collections of major museums in the United States, Canada, England, France, and Holland.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Guggenheim Museum New York
SELECTED AWARDS
He received the UNESCO Prize at the Venice Biennale of 1954
Graphics prize at the Ljubljana Biennial in Yugoslavia
International Prize for Painting at the São Paulo Bienal
Awarded anin
John Solomon Guggenheim Fellowship Award - New York, less