Karel Appel – I paint the wildness of my times

Dutch artist Karel APPEL was a cofounder of the group known as Cobra (1948-1951), named after its member artists’ home cities of Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. As well as participating in Cobra, Appel continued to produce spontaneous and exuberant art until the end of the 1970s. His instinctive approach to painting is typically expressed as an explosion of colour and a child-like graphical sensibility. Appel juggles materials, plasters on layers of paint, and pulls together found objects that are integrated into his works. Rather than seeking to seduce the viewer he wants to give represent the wildness of his times.

In ten years, Appel’s price index for all media has gained 130%. His drawings have risen most sharply (+163%). Collectors are keenest on the works in gouache from the late forties and fifties, most of which sell for less than USD 10,000. However, the best-realised pieces provoke fierce competition among buyers and can go for as much as USD 150,000. The highest price ever paid for an Appel gouache was EUR 120,000, at Sotheby’s Amsterdam in 2006, for Beast from 1951, the year the Cobra group officially broke up. Amsterdam is a key market for Appel, half of whose works are sold in Europe (the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Sweden, etc.). However, the best pieces are to be found in London or New York, and it was at Christie’s New York that Appel attained his record price for the 1951 canvas Women, Children, Animals. Its free flowing graphical sprawl over a nearly 3 metre wide canvas (170 x 280cm) attracted a top bid of USD 680,000 in May 2002. In June 2007, a smaller canvas from the same year, Cyclist (73 x 50cm), also went for well above its upper estimate in Amsterdam, changing hands for EUR 400,000.

The size of a piece is a less critical determining factor than the year it was made. For example, in Christie’s 2006 summer sale on 23 June in London, Three Musicians (193 x 502.9cm), a late work from 1982, sold for GBP 85,000, while the smaller The Cat, (113 x 145.5cm ), from 1955, went for GBP 98,000.

A small work (around 20cm) from Appel’s most-prized period will generally cost around EUR 15,000 to EUR 30,000. This contrasts with twenty years ago, when you could have picked up an untitled canvas from 1959 for just USD 1,800 (April, Sotheby’s New York).

Appel started sculpting in the 1940s. He was fascinated by the assemblage technique and developed a heterogeneous and poetic sculptural vocabulary built around juxtapositions of found objects and strong colours. The best-known of his sculptures are, however, the wooden painted pieces some of which (produced in multiple editions) can be bought for between EUR 1,000 and EUR 2,000. For instance, a 1977 Frog went for EUR 1,700 on 18 June 2007 at Cornette de Saint-Cyr, Paris. And, in an illustration of the resurgent interest in Appel over the last three years, a wooden painted piece from 1950 called The Tree of Life smashed its estimated range of EUR 70,000-90,000 last December to sell for EUR 260,000 at Christie’s, Amsterdam. This was the highest price ever paid at auction for one of the artist’s three-dimensional works.