Howard Behrens
Behrens’ love of art started at an early age. Born in Chicago in 1933, he inherited creative talents from both of his parents. His mother, Marie, was an artistic soul with a flair for design, and his father, Walter, worked as a printer who was meticulous with his work. Behrens’ first introduction to the world of art began in the third grade when he received a watercolor set. “We didn’t have much money, so the painting set was like a toy,” he said. “I didn’t know any better, so I just kept playing with it. Finally, I just loved doing it.”
This love of art continued through grade school and high school when his family moved to Tacoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. He quickly became known as “the class artist” who created work for the yearbook and newspaper. Behrens’ love of art was cemented following a sledding accident his senior year of high school. He was sequestered to the hospital for several months, and he whittled away the hours by painting. “I just kept painting,” he said. “I was in there having a ball and painting away.”
Upon graduation from high school, Behrens took a job as a government clerk and continued his studies in art as an undergraduate at the University of Maryland. He was accepted into the medical illustration program at Johns Hopkins University, but he opted to pursue a graduate degree in painting and illustration instead. “I decided that creative art is nothing like scientific illustration. In scientific illustration you create exactly what is there,” he explained. “You don’t create or change anything. You don’t do anything except follow what you see. I didn’t want to do that.”
It was this pivotal choice that began the exceptional artistic career of Howard Behrens. After receiving his masters degree, the artist worked for 17 years as a government graphic designer and took advantage of his experiences there and the generous government vacation schedule to work on his paintings and travel the world gaining inspiration from the lush, tropical locales he visited.
If ever there was a composer of color, it is Howard Behrens, a brilliant painter who has emerged among a sea of artists to become the preeminent modern master of the palette knife and an incomparable translator of color. “Using an analogy from music, I like to think of myself not as a piano player, but as a composer. There are a lot of piano players, but they are playing someone else’s music. I want to be remembered as a master ‘composer’ of art, not a ‘musician.’”
Indeed, Behrens will be remembered as the composer. He will also be remembered as a master colorist, a palette knife magician, and a kind and gentle soul. “One thing about the palette knife is that you get great color and you can play with the texture,” he said. “So it’s color and texture and real genuine paint where you see the act of paintings.”
The experts couldn’t agree more. “Howard is the best colorist among a large group of post-Impressionist painters in the United States today,” shared Harriet Rinehart, founder of Rinehart Fine Arts. “Although many people try to imitate him, they always come up second best.” “There are many who have tried to imitate his style, but no one has come close,” added Josh Miller of Ocean Galleries in Stone Harbor and Avalon, New Jersey. “There are different people trying to do what he does, but they just don’t pull it off,” agreed Rick Moore of Rick Moore Fine Art in Naples, Florida, and Rick Moore Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
At once an introspective and humble man and a skilled painter, Behrens has created a world of beauty in his work that combines a love of paint, a passion for travel, and a mastery of style and color.
Behrens also developed a method for creation that combined travel, sketching, fine art photography and paintings. Creation of paintings that integrate what he calls “big, juicy chunks of paint” is no simple task. In 1976, Behrens took a trip to Jamaica and was blown away by the color and beauty of the lush tropical island. “Beach subject matter is beautiful for palette knife painting, and Jamaica was gorgeous,” he said. “There was so much color—sailboats, beach umbrellas, girls walking in colorful bathing suits, bright beach blankets, and the reflections in the water. It was stunning.”
Behrens painted several canvases and realized he couldn’t bring wet paintings back on the plane. So a new creation method was born. He traveled to Italy and let the beauty of the villages and harbors wash over him, making stops in such places as Venice, Portofino, Capri, and Lake Como. He realized that it wasn’t just beaches that held majestic beauty that was easily captured with a palette knife. “Architecture is a lot more difficult subject matter than the beach,” he said. “I was entranced by the boats, the architecture, the bougainvillea and all the old-world charm.”
Behrens soon became a master with the camera and sketch pad, and even now brings these tools on all of his travels and uses them to piece together his distinctive paintings. “I will photograph reference material—awnings, flower pots, cafés under the sycamore trees, boats in the harbor. I probably get 30 or 40 slides in one walk of 100 yards or so,” he explained. “I also stop every 100 yards and make a quick sketch. The sketches are the compositions, the heart of my paintings."
A Howard Behrens painting is a combination of artistic influences that culminates in a style he calls “controlled spontaneity.” In his work are reflections of such artists as Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Camille Pisarro, Alfred Sisely, and Italian palette knife painter Nicola Simbari. At his heart, Behrens considers himself an expressionist who has integrated the spontaneous nature of the Impressionist painters. “I'm an expressionist. I like to use color and dramatic, long areas of light and dark. Sunlight makes things more intense than they are. I purposely exaggerate light because it brings out more emotion. With the palette knife, you can’t help but to be spontaneous,” he explained. “Oftentimes, I will splash a lot of areas with thick paint. Then I will go back and use the edge of the knife to put the edges on buildings and other things. You work back to the controlled part.”
Most of the famous works by Howard Behrens as below:
Howard Behrens Paintings Along the Costa Brava
Howard Behrens Paintings Bellagio Garden
Howard Behrens Paintings Bellagio Promenade
Howard Behrens Paintings Capri Cove
Howard Behrens Paintings Capri Del Mar
Howard Behrens Paintings Catalina Promenade
Howard Behrens Paintings Costa Brava Sunset
Howard Behrens Paintings Cove at Portofino
Howard Behrens Paintings Hotel Capri
Howard Behrens Paintings Il Lago Como
Howard Behrens Paintings Il Lago Maggiore
Howard Behrens Paintings Lake Como Landing
Howard Behrens Paintings Lighthouse at Sauzon
Howard Behrens Paintings Naples, Florida
Howard Behrens Paintings Palm Beach Flower Garden
Howard Behrens Paintings Portofino Villa
Howard Behrens Paintings Promenade to the Sea
Howard Behrens Paintings Reflections of Lake Como
behrens landscaping Paintings Riviera Stairs
behrens landscaping Paintings Rue de St. Paul
behrens landscaping Paintings Somerset Beach
behrens landscaping Paintings Splendor of Italy
behrens landscapingPaintings Stairway to Carlotta
behrens landscaping Paintings Sunlit Stroll
behrens landscaping Paintings Vista Riviera
behrens landscaping Paintings Villa Cipriani Archway
behrens landscaping Paintings Village Hideaway
behrens landscaping Paintings Villa Balbainello
behrens landscaping Paintings Tuscany
This “controlled spontaneity” was truly honed when Behrens started painting full time in the early 1980s. The Penguin Gallery in Jacksonville, Florida, saw his work in a gallery near Washington, D.C., and was intrigued by the palette knife style. The gallery signed him up for a one-man show, and the rest is history. Behrens soon signed on with the Wally Findlay Galleries. Up next were a series of successful shows in such prestigious locales as Palm Beach, Florida; Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California; and along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Soon Behrens quit his job in the government and devoted himself to painting full time. “I hit the jackpot and was really lucky,” he said. “Nothing succeeds like a little success. I couldn’t believe what was happening. It was an incentive like no incentive I’ve ever had in my life.”
In spite of his incredible success as an artist, Howard Behrens remains true to his humble, yet artistically passionate soul. He still waxes poetic about the act of painting, his love of his work and his affinity for his collectors. “As well known, widely collected and widely recognized of an artist as he is, I am always surprised at how genuinely humble Howard is, and how much he treasures the people who collect his work,” said Josh Miller of Ocean Galleries. “You see artists who eventually see art as a way to pay bills, and it becomes just a job. With Howard, I don’t think that original excitement that a young artist achieves has ever left him.”
other artist: Lord Frederick Leighton Paintings Ford Madox Brown Paintings Mark Rothko Paintings Andreas Achenbach Paintings