KAREL APPEL, PAINTER

by Hugo Claus ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

This is an addition to this publisher's series on Contemporary Artists among whom Appel, the Guggenheim award winning painter, has achieved considerable eminence. He has no doubt an aficionado avant garde audience, who recognize the power, the farouche dynamism, the symbolism in his work- savage and strident as it is. There are 134 illustrations, including 19 hand-tipped full color plates, and it is an exceedingly handsome piece of bookmaking. But the uninitiated will perhaps learn as much from Herbert Read's short two page foreword as from Mr. Claus' text which is as abstruse- abstract as the painter's work. (Hence, perhaps, the insert explaining the design of Claus' text.) Others will become impatient with the imagistic, turbulent prose- i.e. ""That Image, which according to many must be a magnet, a monstrance (with healing qualities, with recondite obligations)"". The cover itself is perhaps more suitable to a record album than a book and this too may be appropriately deliberate: Appel is a devotee, needs loud noises, jazz, jabber""-uproar in which to create his visual effects predominantly in black, white, grey and red.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Abrams

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1963

Categories: NONFICTION