Karel Appel

1921-2006 - The vibrant and rather forceful works of the internationally known Dutch artist, Karel Appel, have been displayed and well-received in major cities throughout the world. Born in Amsterdam in 1921, Appel had his first one-man show in 1949 when he exhibited with the "CoBrA" group at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum. Since that time he has had one-man shows (including three major retrospectives) in New York, Amsterdam, Boston, London, Milan, Paris, San Francisco and Tokyo, and has participated in over 150 group shows throughout the world, including the Sao Paulo Biennale (Honorable Mention, 1953; Prize for painting, 1959), the Venice Biennale (UNESCO prize, 1954), Kassel's Documenta III, the Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim Museum (Guggenheim International Award, 1960) in New York. Appel is also well known for his murals in Amsterdam, Paris, and particularly Brussels where he executed a mural for the Dutch Pavilion at the Worlds Fair in 1957.