Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo aka Corneille, Part 1

Corneille, whose real name was Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo, is a Dutch painter, printmaker, ceramicist and writer.

He was born on July 3rd, 1922 in Liege, Belgium. His parents Maria Cornelia Goosen and Willem van Beverloo were from Dutch origin and came initially from Rotterdam, but they lived in Liége, Belgium. The family moved back to the Netherlands when Corneille was 12 years old.

In spite of being so famous and an extensive search from Yours Truly, there is very little known about his private life. As far as his work-related life goes, it is rather minimal, but I will share my findings.

In the years 1940 - 1943, Corneille studied drawing at the Amsterdam Rijksakademie. He didn't really like that and taught himself how to paint. He became good friends with Karel Appel, who studied at the academy as well.

Corneille, along with some other artists founded the REFLEX movement in 1948 and in 1949 he founded the COBRA group in Denmark with Appel, Alechinksy, Jorn and Dubbuffet, where he became a leading abstract expressionist painter, printmaker and poet.

Much of his poetry was published in the COBRA magazine and his paintings had a great influence on Scandinavian art.

See also:
Guillaume Cornelis van beverloo aka Corneille, Part 2