Guillaume Corneille, born Cornelis van Beverloo in Liège, Belgium, in 1922, was a Dutch painter, sculptor, and co-founder of the CoBrA movement. From an early age, he was fascinated by drawing and colors. He moved to the Netherlands and enrolled at the Amsterdam Royal Academy of Fine Arts. His artistic style was deeply influenced by primitive and children's art, characterized by vibrant colors and a spontaneous, expressive approach. In 1948, Corneille, along with Karel Appel and Constant, founded CoBrA, a revolutionary European avant-garde movement that opposed geometric abstraction and sought a return to more expressive and primitive art forms.
His works are part of major museum collections, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Tate Gallery in London. He participated in numerous exhibitions, including retrospectives at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, cementing his status as a key figure in post- war European art. Corneille passed away in 2010 in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.