Composition No. 3
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Composition No. 3
Maker
Karel Appel
(b. 1921, Amsterdam, Netherlands – d. 2006, Zurich, Switzerland)
Date1962
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions13 3/4 in. x 10 5/8 in. (34.9 cm x 27 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Edmond R. Ruben (Evelyn Halff, Class of 1922)
Object number1981.8
Status
Not on viewRightsCopyright is retained in accordance with U.S. Copyright laws
Photo creditDavis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
More InformationAppel studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam before joining the CoBrA group—the acronym signaling the members’ native cities of Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam––which also included Pierre Alechinsky, Constant, Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn, and Jan Nieuwenhuys. Fiercely avant-garde, these artists rejected the art trends of the day for their vacuous spirituality and sterile intellectualism, and advocated for an unprocessed and instinctive immediacy in approach to both subject and medium. The goal, Jorn wrote, was a “the expression of forms faithful to their content.” Appel’s little picture carries an outsized impact: the high impasto and vivid palette—drawn with an open paint tube—is a raw evocation of a doubled female nude.