Karel Appel (1921-2006)

Private Collection, Eindhoven
Galerie Nova Spectra, The Hague
Private Collection, Wassenaar
Auke van der Werff B.V., Amsterdam
Private Collection, The Netherlands

In mint condition.
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Originating from "Experimentele Groep". The CoBrA movement was officially established in Paris in 1948, by a group  of enthusiastic young artists and writers. The initiators of this movement included Asger Jorn, Carl-Henning Pedersen and Egill Jacobsen from Denmark, Pierre Alechinsky and Christian Dotremont from Belgium and Karel Apel, Corneille and Constant from Holland.

Having suffered the terrors of Second World War, these artists were not only actuated by political ideas, which often had their roots in Marxism, but also cried for artistic freedom.

Constant wrote in 1948: "A painting is not a construction of colours and lines, but an animal, a night, a cry, a person, or all of that together".(Manifesto in Reflex, October 8^th).

In 1949, the year of origin of Hond en Maan, Willem Sandberg, at that time director of  the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum, organized the "Exposition Internationale d'Art Experimental", that can be considered as the first official performance of the CoBrA group.

Karel Appel and his contemporaries found inspiration in the drawings of children, the mentally ill and in primitive, unspoiled cultures. Appel and the other CoBrA artists sought the images of our fantasy, hidden in the subconscious. They created their images influenced by the ideas from the theories of the psychiatrist Carl Jung.

In artistic respect one could also see that Karel Appel was strongly influenced in this period by Picasso and Miro.

All these elements Karel Appel has implemented in Hond en Maan. He uses subdued, unmixed colours of blue and yellow until a concentrated spectrum remains free but still bound and canvas and creature seize together.

We kindly thank Mr Jan Nieuwenhuizen Segaar for his contribution to the research of this work