AMSTERDAM (REUTERS).- The Dutch painter Corneille, co-founder of the avant-garde Cobra movement, died on Sunday at the age of 88, the Dutch Cobra museum said on Sunday.

The Dutch news agency NOS said he had died in France, where he lived and worked.

Born on July 3, 1922, as Guillaume Cornelis Beverloo, Corneille became one of the driving forces behind Cobra, the movement founded by artists from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam and active from 1949 to 1952.

The group preached complete freedom of color and form and drew inspiration from children's drawings, primitive art forms and the work of Paul Klee and Joan Miro.

"Corneille is considered to be one of the most important modern graphic artists of the previous century. As one of the pioneers of Cobra, he developed an entire new poetic art of painting," the Dutch Cobra museum said in a statement.

Corneille was a close friend of Karel Appel, who died in 2006. Together they founded the Dutch Experimental Group in 1948, which later became absorbed into Cobra.

Other members of the movement included Constant, Christian Dotremont and Asger Jorn.

(Reporting by Harro ten Wolde; Editing by Kevin Liffey)