July 3, 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of Corneille‘s birth – an occasion for us to honour the work and significance of the Dutch painter and to dedicate him an exhibition that shows his work in the framework of his fellow artists of the CoBrA group.
Through the mutual inspiration in the CoBrA group, which Corneille founded in 1948 together with Karel Appel, Asger Jorn, Christian Dotremont and other young artists, early works were created that bear witness to a strong spirit of optimism in the post-war period as well as an extraordinary enthusiasm for experimentation. After CoBrA was disbanded in 1951, Corneille soon embarked on his own artistic path and developed an individual formal language that initially leaned towards abstraction, but ultimately always remained representational. From 1949, he travelled to Tunisia and North Africa, where he pursued an intensive engagement with the African landscape, cultural heritage and indigenous art. His impressions resonate in a distinct imagery, with compositions of linear patterns featuring a subtle arrangement of earthy tones and few accents of colour, reminiscent of maps and city plans. In his figurative works of the 1960s and 1970s, he combines lines and surfaces in an intuitive and equally lyrical manner; an intense expressiveness and pronounced use of colour are characteristic of this creative period. The artist develops a distinctive formal language that can be understood and read intersubjectively, sensorially perceptible and universal in its symbolism in every culture while offering the viewer different levels of meaning.
Common ideas, but also major differences in their artistic conception emerge in the juxtaposition of Corneille‘s works with those of his artist friends Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, Lucebert, Asger Jorn, Theo Wolvekamp as well as other members of this particular avant-garde group.
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