Corneille is born in Luik (Belgium) in 1922 as Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo. In 1940, he moves to the Netherlands, where he attends the Rijksacademie, an art college in Amsterdam. In 1948, he joins the Experimentele Groep Holland. Later that year he is a founding member of the Cobra group. This group, which consists of artists from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, turns away from academism and lets themselves be inspired by children’s drawings, drawings by mentally disabled, primitive art and folk art.
In 1951 the Cobra group falls apart. A year before, Corneille settles in Paris, from where his fame spreads throughout the world.
In Corneille’s fifties and early sixties work, naturalistic elements, such as stones and rocks, play an important part. Much of his work from this period shows abstract landscapes, seen from the air. From about 1965, the figurative element in Corneille’s work returns.
In the course of the seventies, Corneille’s imagery becomes more limited. Multicoloured images of women, birds and cats, caught in heavy contour lines, dominate the compositions.
During his whole artistic career, Corneille was inspired by the Cobra principles. Inspiration also came from his journeys to exotic destinations, such as Africa and Middle and South America.
