Corneille - Litho E/A - signed r.o. - 1951

Corneille was born in 1922 as Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo in Liège. In 1940 he moved to the Netherlands, studied art at the Amsterdam Rijksacademie, joined the Experimental Group Holland in 1948 and co-founded the Cobra group. This group, consisting of artists from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, turned away from academicism and was inspired by children's drawings, drawings by the mentally handicapped, primitive art and folk art. The group disbanded in 1951. Earlier, in 1950, Corneille had settled in Paris, from where his fame spread worldwide.
In Corneille's work from the fifties and early sixties, natural elements such as stones and rocks play an important role. Much of his work from this period shows abstracted landscapes, seen from the air. From the second half of the sixties, the figurative element returns to his work.
In the course of the seventies the visual language becomes more one-sided. Multicoloured compositions with women, birds and cats, set off with heavy contours, predominate.
Throughout his artistic career, Corneille has drawn inspiration from Cobra. He has also drawn inspiration from his travels to exotic places such as Africa and Central and South America.