KAREL APPEL Amsterdam, 1921 - Zurigo, 2006
Karel Appel was born in Amsterdam in 1921. From 1940 to 1943 he studied at the 'Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten'. In 1946 he held his first solo show at 'Het Beerenhuis in Groningen' and participated in the exhibition 'Jonge Schilders' at the Stedelijk Museum; his style is partially influenced by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jean Dubuffet. From 1948 he is part of the founders of the 'Cobra group,' with other artists. In 1950 in Paris he meets Michel Tapié. In 1953 he held a solo exhibition at the 'Palais de Beaux-Arts' in Brussels; in 1954 he received the UNESCO prize at the 'Venice Biennale'. The following year he won a prize at the 'Ljubljana Biennial'; in 1959 he was awarded the 'International Prize for Painting' at the 'São Paulo Biennial'. In 1962 the first monograph dedicated to him was published. In the late 1960s Appel moved to Château de Molesmes, near Paris. In 1968 the 'Centre National d'Art Contemporain' in Paris and the 'Stedelijk Museum' in Amsterdam devoted several exhibitions to him, as the 'Kunsthalle Basel' and the 'Palais des Beaux-Arts' in Brussels in 1969. In 1970 he held a major exhibition at the 'Centraal Museum' in Utrecht, and in 1972 a traveling retrospective in Canada and the United States. Appel for many years lived and worked between New York and Florence and died in Zurich in 2006.
