Constant (Constant Anton Nieuwenhuijs)
Amsterdam 1920-2005 Utrecht
Three gypsy musicians, watercolour on paper 35,8 x 33,3 cm., signed l.r. and executed circa 1985
1314843/Coll.I cv
Price band: between 15.000 and 25.000 euro
Constant made this collage in 1948, the year he met Karel Appel and Corneille and with them, plus Dotremont, Noiret and Asger Jorn, founded the Cobra group. He had first made international contacts with like-minded artists in Paris in 1946 and along with Dotremont was the major theorist of the group. In his work, which as early as 1946 is already characterised by experimental forms and techniques, the fantasy creatures with large eyes and crude limbs that came to epitomise the Cobra idiom are already there. While Karel Appel and Corneille had an international breakthrough with their work, Constant remained the ideologist of the group.