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Lot Essay
‘The duty of the artist is not to be calculating in any sense, so that he may be free himself of human emotions while carried by the universal forces of life. Only then does one not think about making art, or about styles, or directions. Something comes about, something happens’ (K. Appel, quoted in Harry de Visser and Roland Hagenberg, eds., Karel Appel – the complete sculptures, New York, 1990).
With its wildly gestural brushwork of swirling, thick oil paint, Untitled (1960) is a beautifully expressive example of Karel Appel’s distinctive practice in the early-1960s. Executed in the same year that Karel Appel became the youngest artist ever to be awarded the first prize at the Guggenheim International Exhibition, Untitled is a captivating example of the artist’s practice during this intensely creative period. Informed by the international reputation of Abstract Expressionism, in the present work, we see swathes of bright red, deep black, midnight blue and vibrant orange energetically collide and intermingle over a pale backdrop. Appel’s expertly contoured, thick impasto, results in extraordinarily intense and vibrant expression. The physicality of the impastoed surface and its topographic variety allowing light to reflect and cast shadows, dramatically increasing the emotional intensity of his violent colour contrasts.
Painted in 1960, Untitled shows Appel gradually beginning to distance himself from his previous affiliation with the CoBrA Group that he had joined in 1948. An avant-garde European movement with which he is often associated, CoBrA initially aimed to liberate colour and form in response to the horrors of the Second World War. But by the 1960s however, Appel's Primitive Expressionism had re-addressed itself towards the aesthetic concerns that were shaping the art world on the other side of the Atlantic, finding a closer affiliation with the tendencies of Abstract Expressionism and the work of Jackson Pollock whom he had initially encountered in Paris in 1951. Working with the New York dealer Martha Jackson from 1954, Appel visited New York three years later, frequently showing in galleries across the city. Introduced by Jackson Pollock to his contemporary Abstract Expressionist painters such as Wiillem de Kooning and Sam Francis, whose studio Appel worked in, his style developed further. The dynamic and powerful brushstrokes of the present work embody this important phase in the artist's career, signaling his rise to international recognition.
Refusing any pictorial hierarchy, Appel's exuberant and expressive brushstrokes speak to his vision of the world and the role art plays in it. 'What counts for me,' he said, 'is impulse, energy, speed action. That's when the really unexpected things happen; the true expressive image that rises undefinably out of the mass of matter, speed and colour' (K. Appel, quoted in T. Brakeley (ed.), Karel Appel, New York 1980, p. 164). The overwhelming and enthusiastic vitality that erupts from Untitled (1960) is telling of Appel's attempts to relate the making of art to everyday existence: art is not a remote realm detached from everyday experience, but something intrinsically entangled with the world's raw materials. Appel explains, 'Painting is a tangible, sensual experiencing, intensely moved by the joy and the tragedy of man. A spatial experiencing, fed by instinct, becomes a living shape. The atmosphere I inhale and make tangible by my paint is an expression of my era' (K. Appel, quoted in 'A statement', 1950, in Karel Appel: Paintings 1980-85, exh. cat., Bristol, Arnolfini, 1986, p. 13).
With its wildly gestural brushwork of swirling, thick oil paint, Untitled (1960) is a beautifully expressive example of Karel Appel’s distinctive practice in the early-1960s. Executed in the same year that Karel Appel became the youngest artist ever to be awarded the first prize at the Guggenheim International Exhibition, Untitled is a captivating example of the artist’s practice during this intensely creative period. Informed by the international reputation of Abstract Expressionism, in the present work, we see swathes of bright red, deep black, midnight blue and vibrant orange energetically collide and intermingle over a pale backdrop. Appel’s expertly contoured, thick impasto, results in extraordinarily intense and vibrant expression. The physicality of the impastoed surface and its topographic variety allowing light to reflect and cast shadows, dramatically increasing the emotional intensity of his violent colour contrasts.
Painted in 1960, Untitled shows Appel gradually beginning to distance himself from his previous affiliation with the CoBrA Group that he had joined in 1948. An avant-garde European movement with which he is often associated, CoBrA initially aimed to liberate colour and form in response to the horrors of the Second World War. But by the 1960s however, Appel's Primitive Expressionism had re-addressed itself towards the aesthetic concerns that were shaping the art world on the other side of the Atlantic, finding a closer affiliation with the tendencies of Abstract Expressionism and the work of Jackson Pollock whom he had initially encountered in Paris in 1951. Working with the New York dealer Martha Jackson from 1954, Appel visited New York three years later, frequently showing in galleries across the city. Introduced by Jackson Pollock to his contemporary Abstract Expressionist painters such as Wiillem de Kooning and Sam Francis, whose studio Appel worked in, his style developed further. The dynamic and powerful brushstrokes of the present work embody this important phase in the artist's career, signaling his rise to international recognition.
Refusing any pictorial hierarchy, Appel's exuberant and expressive brushstrokes speak to his vision of the world and the role art plays in it. 'What counts for me,' he said, 'is impulse, energy, speed action. That's when the really unexpected things happen; the true expressive image that rises undefinably out of the mass of matter, speed and colour' (K. Appel, quoted in T. Brakeley (ed.), Karel Appel, New York 1980, p. 164). The overwhelming and enthusiastic vitality that erupts from Untitled (1960) is telling of Appel's attempts to relate the making of art to everyday existence: art is not a remote realm detached from everyday experience, but something intrinsically entangled with the world's raw materials. Appel explains, 'Painting is a tangible, sensual experiencing, intensely moved by the joy and the tragedy of man. A spatial experiencing, fed by instinct, becomes a living shape. The atmosphere I inhale and make tangible by my paint is an expression of my era' (K. Appel, quoted in 'A statement', 1950, in Karel Appel: Paintings 1980-85, exh. cat., Bristol, Arnolfini, 1986, p. 13).