Romi Behrens English, 1939-2019

Romi Behrens (1939-2019) was born in Wiltshire and moved to Cornwall in 1959, where she lived for the rest of her life. A multi-talented and thoroughly creative person, she was a visual artist, a violinist and a life long member of the Newlyn Society of Artists, where her paintings were often exhibited in mixed shows. Largely self-taught, Romi went briefly to the Penzance School of Art and was described by critic Frank Ruhrmund as ‘both a speedy and a spontaneous artist’. She was great friends with many leading contemporary artists in the St Ives School including Patrick Heron, Paul Feiler, John Wells and Terry Frost. Her relationship with such artists was a great training in itself, and the many conversations she had about painting with them was a form of mentoring.

Romi Behrens had a solo exhibition at the Arnolfini, Bristol in 1980 and exhibitied with various private galleries in London. She had work included in two of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions. In 2020 a body of paintings by Romi was selected for the ‘St Ives Modernists’ exhibition at David Simon Contemporary, Castle Cary, shown alongside paintings by William Scott, Patrick Heron, Christopher Wood and Terry Frost. There was a retrospective, solo exhibition of Behrens’ work at David Simon Contemporary, in 2021, 'A Lively Vision'. This new exhibition of her work coincides with the recent publication of a monograph entitled ‘Romi Behrens: A Painting Life’, published by Sansom & Company. In Dr Rachel Rose Smith’s introduction, she observes that the artist “would often give a scene a particular focus, chosen not without humour, on characterful though distinctly everyday features, and paint them with a quiet vividness and flair”. She eloquently explains how Romi painted the everyday with an honest naivety and with an especially free and intensely personal approach. Dr Chris Stephens, Director of the Holburne Museum in Bath, wrote the foreword to the book