Woman, Cat & Bird | 2400 €

Guillaume Corneille

Corneille Guillaume van Beverloo, known as Corneille, is born in Liege (Belgium) in 1922.

He studies drawing in Rijksakademie of Amsterdam (1940-1943). In the 40’s, Corneille is in search of a “new creativity”; in a very free way, he mainly paints birds and gardens. His first personal exhibition is organized in 1946 in Paris, where he settles definitively in 1950.

In 1948, Corneille is cofounder of Reflex and Cobra groups (with the painters Asger Jorn, Karel Appel, Constant and two Belgian poets, Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret). Together, they sign a short text, written by Jorn and Dotremont, which they entitle “the cause was heard”, ironic reference to proclamation of Surrealism, “the cause is heard”. There, they advance an experimental art, in reaction against any esthetism and any specialization, in order to express a controversy. Corneille’s style strikes by his forms which point out to children naive drawings, without however being unaware of a certain violence.

From 1950 and until 1958, he travels a lot (Africa, Americas, the Antilles) and creates abstract and coloured landscapes which are like the traces of his own peregrinations. In 1962, he has his first exhibition in New York. At the beginning of the Sixties, Corneille returns to a “New Figuration”. Then the artist paints, carries out an important graphic work, creates sculptures and ceramics objects, extremely coloured works whose forms are generally underlined by black rings. His art evokes a personal and imaginary world, a populated universe of flowers, birds and women. From 1980 to 1987, Corneille takes part in many retrospectives devoted to the Cobra movement in France and abroad.

Corneille died in September 2010, he was 88 years old.