The Dutch painter Corneille, whose real name was Guillaume Cornelis Beverloo, has died aged 88. Corneille was and is widely regarded as one of the most important Dutch painters of the Twentieth century.

He was born in 1922 to Dutch parents living in Belgium. When he was 12 the family moved back to the Netherlands. Mostly self-taught, between 1940 and 1942 he also took courses at the Amsterdam Academy. He had his first exhibition in the Dutch city of Groningen. Initially influenced by Picasso, he distanced himself from the Spanish artist following World War II.

Paris
Aged 26, Corneille and Dutch painter Karel Appel travelled to Paris. Along with the Belgian artists Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret and Danish artist Asger Jorn, in 1948 they founded there the avant-garde movement COBRA. The acronym refers to members' home cities: Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. Three years later the group disbanded. Corneille later said the group was at its very peak then.

Commercial
In 1950, Corneille had moved to Paris, where he went through three other periods. The first, marked by an abstract lyricism, was followed by a period dominated by landscape paintings that took their inspiration from his travels through Africa. In his last period he mainly painted birds, flowers and women in bright, cheerful colours. It was this last style that made him popular among the general public, especially after he accepted commercial commissions, such as making printed pens and ties, often to the dismay of his admirers.

Failing health
In 2007, after recovering from health problems, he attended the opening of an exhibition at the CoBrA-museum in Amstelveen, near Amsterdam. Corneille kept painting until his death in a hospital in France.

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