Corneille

Corneille was born in Liège, Belgium, to Dutch parents[1]. Although largely self-taught, he took art courses at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam between 1940 and 1942. In 1946 he held his first exhibition in Groningen. Initially strongly influenced by Picasso's work, he broke away from it in 1948 and joined the Cobra movement; he is a co-founder of it, together with, among others, the Dutchmen Karel Appel, Jan Nieuwenhuijs, his brother Constant Nieuwenhuijs and the Belgians Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret. He himself claimed that painting is not a hobby or work, but rather a vocation. In recent years, Corneille had his studio in Paris. Visitors were hardly tolerated by the artist. Corneille lived in seclusion in the Maison du Cedres in the French department of Val-d'Oise.