Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo, better known as Corneille (1922–2010), was born in Belgium, moving to the Netherlands as a child. He went on to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. It was here he met fellow Dutchman Karel Appel (1921–2006) who would become an influential artistic partner and friend.
Appel and Corneille were joined in their intellectual partnership by Constant Anton Neiwenhys, known as Constant (1920–2005). The three engage in the emerging post-war artistic world of abstraction and experimentation. They were invited to Copenhagen in 1948 by Danish artist Asger Jorn (1914–1973) to participate in the annual Høst exhibition, a meeting point for avant-garde artists in the Danish scene at this time. Their collaboration blossomed from there, forming the group CoBrA along with Belgian poet Christian Dotremont, named after the founder’s cities; Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam. Inspired by the work of Paul Klee and Joan Miró, the group prized intuitive artmaking, using bright, unmixed colours and drawing on folk tales and child-like symbols. Before this time, Corneille had been drawn to cubist and surrealist work. As with many of the artists in the group, his work changed dramatically as a result of the CoBrA period.
After CoBrA disbanded in 1951, Corneille moved to Paris and began collecting African art. He married photographer Henny Riemens in 1955, and the couple travelled widely, to North Africa, the Caribbean and South America. These travels influenced his work greatly. His work became more gentle and more figurative, with motifs of birds, exotic landscapes and female figures recurring in these paintings. He called himself the “painter of joy” – aiming to emphasise the beauty of life in his works.
In 1956, Corneille achieved institutional recognition with a solo exhibition at the Stedelijk in Amsterdam, as well as being awarded the Guggenheim International award for the Netherlands. His work can be found in major public collections including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.