Child with Pretend Animal, Karel Appel

Exhibition Label:
"Graphic Reflections of the 60's and 70's," May-1981, curated by graduate students from various departments
Child with a Pretend Animal captures the essence of Appel's abstract impressionism. Rich in imagery as well as in color, the print suggests a half-humorous, half-frightening creature, presumably evolved from the unconscious mind of the infant. Like the suggested child, Appel begins anew with each work. "Sometimes," notes Appel, "my work looks very childish, or child-like, schizophrenic or stupid. I find my imagination and go onto represent it. I depict the imagination I find in the flat two-dimensional colors of the print itself."

In Child with a Pretend Animal, Appel is a creator of forceful images even when he uses two dimensional patches of color. The lithographic medium embodies the free-wheeling act of creation that Appel manifests in all of his art work. the viewer (like the artist and the "child") is left tot his imagination. And, like his fellow Cobrists [COBRA artists], Appel is a creator of forceful images. They are born of his affections for the primitive and folkloric and his belief in spontaneous, instinctive, unplanned and uninhibited art. His art is free and unfettered, filled with simple child-like visions.