Karel Appel

Martha Jackson Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in August 1964

“Colors emerge unconsciously from your personal life. That’s human, I think. (…). I torture matter to extract expression from it. I fight with the paint. The paint responds to everything that you do to it. What I’ve just finished painting, I destroy and I begin all over again, and then look at the new space that I’ve conquered. During your fight with matter you grow, as it were, toward an image, which has to do with the sketches that you made or with the photographs that you’ve seen. (….) You paint until the canvas is filled with yourself, until you can’t go any further.” (Karel Appel)