Karel Appel

Karel Appel (1921–2006) was a painter, sculptor and poet, and one of the most prominent Dutch artists of the twentieth century. His early work drew on drawings by children and psychiatric patients, which earned him the mocking label of 'my child could do that too' art at the time: a stigmatisation that does no justice to his versatile and intriguing oeuvre. In the years that followed, his work went through many developments: from the raw, brightly coloured figuration of CoBrA to a later, heavily impasto period in which the paint itself became the subject, 'the matter', as Appel called it, partly shaped by his fascination with jazz music and friendships with musicians such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie. Appel kept experimenting with new materials and techniques throughout his life and was mainly drawn to classical subjects such as landscapes, portraits, nudes and animals; rather than broadening his repertoire, he chose to deepen it further.