Karel Appel’s Foundation Helps Get Market Traction

Karel Appel has a retrospective opening at the Gemeentemuseum in the Netherlands which is part of a broader attempt to re-establish the artist that has been going on for some time. Appel has been whispered to be the next artist to be re-discovered for some time.

There have been fits and starts but Franz Kaiser’s retrospective is possibly the most substantial effort:

Now, thanks largely to the Karel Appel Foundation, established in Amsterdam in 1999 by Appel, Mr. Kaiser and others, Appel’s art has returned to the public eye and research supported by the foundation has introduced new ways of thinking about the artist. That research informs the Gemeentemuseum retrospective, part of a surprisingly fertile run of Appel exhibitions that started in New York in 2014 with a show at the gallery Blum & Poe. […]

The Blum & Poe shows did not sell out […] but a few key works sold for strong prices, including two works from Appel’s CoBrA period, “Square Cat” (1951), which sold for $730,000, and “Homme et Femme” (1952), which brought about $770,000.

Similar prices have been achieved for Appel at auction. In December, Sotheby’s in Paris sold a 1961 painting for €465,000, about $510,000, more than doubling its presale estimate of €150,000 to €200,000.

Shedding New Light on the Late Dutch Artist Karel Appel  (The New York Times)