Born in 1933 in Chicago and growing up in Washington DC acclimated Howard Behrens to historic painted works in the respective museums of each city. After earning his Masters Degree in Painting and Sculpture in 1964 from The University of Maryland, he began a career that has led him to every end of the globe and back, to find and paint scenes of intense beauty.

He has a style that likens itself to the Impressionists of the late nineteenth century, a mixture of Monet, Courbet, Corot and Pissarro- with flair all its own. His use of the palette knife has garnered him the recognition world-wide as the modern master of the technique. An avid world traveler, his magnificent on-location paintings of Mexico, Italy, France, Hawaii, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and United State's coastlines show his marvelous grasp of the colors of his surroundings.

Using impasto (thick paint) he creates depth of field and intense contrast between light and shadow. He has virtually eliminated black and white from his palette, believing instead that the colors in nature are more interesting such as the way a shadow at noon creeps across a villa in Tuscany, or a dusky garden in Giverny emotes pinks, greens, blues.

Making an analogy to a lyrical musician with paint, Behrens said: "I want to be the composer. I don't want to be the piano. And I'll tell you: in art, in painting, you have to be both the piano player and the composer. Every time the music is played, I have to be the one playing it."

And play it he does. "Mr. Behren's work speaks to the segment in each of us that wants a better, more beautiful world," says Victor Forbes-publisher of Fine Arts Magazine. "Howard Behrens is a romantic poet sculpting paint on canvas, and while he has spawned an entire cottage industry of emulators, few, if any capture the emotional breadth of this man in love with love, life and sun". (Howard Behrens: Romance with the Sun)

Source:
Collection Privee Fine Art

Biography from the Archives of askART