Karel Appel (1921-2006)
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Karel Appel (1921-2006)

Nue bleue

Details
Karel Appel (1921-2006)
Nue bleue
signed and dated 'Appel '59' (lower left), inscribed with title (on a label attached to the stretcher)
oil on canvas
195 x 130 cm.
Provenance
Galerie Rive Droite, Paris.
Exhibited
Paris, Galerie Rive Droite, Karel Appel, 3 May - 2 June 1960 (illustrated in the catalogue and on the exhibition poster).
Special notice
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Annemijn van Grimbergen
Annemijn van Grimbergen

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Lot Essay

At the end of the 1950's and the beginning of the 1960's Appel had come to a free style, much more espressionistic than his Cobra works and the works he made later on in the 1960's. Appel was to be in complete control over the materials, by now a mature and experienced painter. Although works from this period may individually give the impression to be the result of impulse and uncontroled action only, he knew exactly what he was doing.

'Appel is totally familiar with his material, the paint, and his direct and spontaneous approach of the empty canvas with this material is clearly visible in his compostions, which in fact are no more and no less the results of a overwhelming and enthusiastic vitality.' (see: W. Stokvis, Cobra, Geschiedenis, voorspel en betekenis van een beweging in de kunst van na de tweede wereldoorlog, Amsterdam 1990, p. 189)

The artist himself once stated: "I paint from the material, because the material is just as rich as the mind, if not richer. It is inmeasurable energy, it can be tranformed by contrasts endlessly, but it can also be mingled. The accomplishment is unimaginable and is still imaginable.
Any definition of an object, expression, work of art, is an attack to reality.
No realism.
No idealism.
Intermediarism.''
(Karel Appel quoted in: Karel Appel over Karel Appel, Amsterdam 1971, p. 99).

This work is registered in the Archives of the Karel Appel Foundation.

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