By Luciano Migliaccio
In the catalogue foreword to Appel’s exhibition held at Masp in May 1981, Pietro M. Bardi wrote: “I purchased Appel’s painting at the Lefèvre Gallery, in London, about twenty years ago, when he was not as famous as today. Given its Dutch origin, I placed the painting next to one of our Van Gogh and verified a natural and lively affinity between them. The occasion also served to inform visitors about the existence of the group Cobra, founded by Appel, Corneille, Jorn, and Alechinsky. Appel can hardly be associated with any trend. His simple personality is charged with an exceptional dramatic sensibility and distinguished by the instant impulsiveness with which he conveys the violence of colors onto a space without deliberating and predicting the final outcome. His impulse is spontaneous and his renditions, apocalyptic and fraught with terror. Appel is akin to the characters of Van Gogh, Ensor, Munch, as well as the manipulators of cave signs and forms”. Besides this reading, the artist was also attracted to portrait painting by Soutine and musical improvisations by be-bop and cool jazz masters of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Mingus, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, and Count Basie.

— Luciano Migliaccio, 1998

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