Born into a Dutch family in Liège, Belgium, his use of his alias came about during his childhood, where in the French-speaking Wallonian region he was known as Corneille. Thus, when he signed his childhood drawings, he used this alias out of modesty: “I thought it was pretentious to put my family name under something I had made.”

The Beverloo family moved back to the Netherlands and settled in Haarlem when Corneille was twelve years old. His father, an engineer, was mostly absent. So, Corneille grew up in a household of women where he was coddled by his mother and four sisters. In his adult life it was the atmosphere of this happy childhood that Corneille wished to preserve. He surrounded himself with women and the female body became one of his most important themes.

Corneille began his artistic career in 1940, studying at the Rijks Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam where his classmate Karel Appel became his closest friend. Corneille and Appel were out of place at the academy: they were not interested in the prevailing views on art and felt they could not learn anything there: “We were experimental painters, the experiment was true, not the nicely finished beautifully cared-for painting. No, it really was about the creative event.”

A decisive incident in Corneille’s evolution as an artist, was his introduction to the École de Paris. He was especially struck with their ‘joie de vivre’ that flourished even during years of war. After a chance encounter with a Hungarian lady in 1947, Corneille had the opportunity to spend four months in Budapest. Here he was exposed for the first time to the works of Paul Klee and the Surrealists, including Miró’s works of childlike sensibility, the latter of which made a great impression on him.

The ruins and gardens of the Hungarian capital enraptured the artist. He wrote to a friend about the palace gardens he visited in Budapest: “The gardens lay bluish gray in the afternoon sun […] the birds, the butterflies, the bees, everything flew, fluttered, rolled, and danced a wild dance. Nature unfolded herself in her enormous vitality, man guarded her no more, she could do as she pleased.” It provided a declaration of intent for his oeuvre as a whole; for the rest of his life he remained faithful to painting animals, humans (women in particular) and nature. Under the influence of all these impressions he also began to experiment freely with a wide variety of subjects, such as mythology and fairy tales, and with different drawing and painting methods.

On 8th November 1948, Corneille, Appel, Constant, Asger Jorn, Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noret, signed a manifesto titled la cause était entendue (we came to an agreement) in café Notre Dame in Paris. It was the beginning of the CoBrA movement, the name being an acronym for Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, the cities from which the founders came. The CoBrA aesthetic was abstract, spontaneous, expressionistic and riotous with colors. The artists considered art to be a window onto the human psyche, and the works often displayed a primal, almost childlike imagery. The artists of the movement were of great importance for Dutch modern art after 1945. Although the CoBrA movement was short-lived, existing for only three years, it was enough to provide Corneille with lifelong inspiration.

During the fifties Corneille travelled widely in Africa, South-America, and the United States. In 1951 he went on an expedition in Algeria, where the Hoggar mountains in particular left a deep impression on the artist: “A hellish sun kneaded every stone - clayed and sculpted it”, he wrote in his travel journal. His paintings became ‘gritty’, with earth tones and greys, creating landscapes that pushed away all air and color, at the edge of abstraction, set against a scorching sun.

In the sixties Corneille travelled to Brazil and Mexico. The craggy organic structures that were a result of his previous travels broke open in colorful signs and symbols. From there he developed what would eventually become imagery of birds, cats and nudes in exotic and heavenly gardens.

Corneille passed away in 2010 having achieved international fame. His work is now held major institutions such as the Cobra Museum of Modern Art in the Netherlands, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

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