Guillaume Corneille Biography

Guillaume Corneille was born in Liege in 1922 of Dutch Parents. Belgian-born Dutch painter, printmaker, ceramicist and writer.

Guillaume Corneille initially trained in drawing at the Amsterdam Rijksakademie (1940 to 1943 ), but is considered a self-trained painter.

His early work was naturalistic, but after being inspired by the joie de vivre of French painters, and in particular by the work of younger artists such as Edouard Pignon, he slowly moved into the Cubist style.

Few contemporary artists have achieved greater world recognition than Corneille. As a co-founder of COBRA -- the famed experimental artists group in 1948 -- he became a leading abstract expressionist painter and printmaker along with such notables as Appel, Alechinksy, Jorn, and Dubbuffet.

In the mid 1950's he travelled and exhibited throughout Western Europe. He first came to the United States in 1958, having won First Honorable Mention at the Carnegie Institute two years earlier. There he was heralded for his spirited and imaginative works. Unlike others, Corneille packed form and content in an otherwise restricted genre. He was soon presented with many prizes and awards, and his works were collected by museums in South America, Africa and Australia.