One of the First, Penzance, 51 x 86 cm, c.1961, Oil on board
Romi Behrens - Art from Cornwall
Romi Behrens was born in London, lived in Wiltshire as a child, married, aged 20, and moved to Penzance, Cornwall.
Having had very little art education, she suddenly found herself buying oil paints, brushes and hardboard and simply started painting - people, buildings, landscapes, still lifes. She said: ‘Art cannot be taught.’
Some of her best friends were artists - Patrick Heron, Jeremy Le Grice, Paul Feiler, Catharine Armitage, Daphne McClure and Alice Mumford.
Photo: Tim Newman
Although not formally trained, Romi was clearly influenced by Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, Cezanne and Rembrandt. She would go to every possible London exhibition and, during the 1970s, drove with her husband to Paris, Arles and Avignon - with boards, paints and brushes.
It is, perhaps, her brushwork, unique sense of composition and fearless approach that distinguish her. Romi’s motto was:
‘I am a painter and I paint every day.’
She was passionate about old Cornwall and the environment, recording through her paintings many places that have now been developed and are unrecognisable. This began in 1959 and continued until shortly before her death in 2019, leaving a significant legacy of Cornish history.
Romi was too young to be a member of The St Ives School, though Patrick Heron, Paul Feiler, Bryan Wynter, John Wells and Terry Frost were visitors to the house where she and her husband, Michael Tunstall-Behrens, lived. She had a passion for Cornish faces and sites, from the bloke sitting in a pub nursing a pint to the standing stones at Treen, near Land’s End. In particular, she recorded Cornish cottages, houses, pubs, churches and landscapes, including sunrises over The Lizard Peninsular, sunsets over Land’s End and anything in between. Furthermore, she kept every object, pot, vase, teapot you can think of to use in a still life, and happily recorded in paint every bunch of flowers she was given.
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Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London, 1977
Brunswick Gallery, Judd Street, London, 1978
Arnolfini, Bristol, 1980
Halesworth Gallery, Suffolk, 1982
Margaret Fisher Gallery, Hampstead, London, 1984
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London, 1984
Michael Parkin Gallery, Motcombe Street, London, 1990
Rebecca Hossack Gallery, Windmill Street, London, 1991
Cadogan Contemporary, South Kensington, London, 1993
Leighton House, Holland Park, London, 1999
Badcocks Gallery, Newlyn, Penzance, 2005
McKenzie-Wylie Contemporary Art, Hungerford, 2005
Trereife House Gallery, Penzance, 2006
Badcocks Gallery, Newlyn, Penzance, 2007
Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, Cornwall, 2010
The Old Methodist Chapel, Gulval, Penzance, 2010
The Illustration Cupboard, St James’, London, 2011
The Old Methodist Chapel, Gulval, Penzance, 2011
Penwith Gallery, St Ives, 2014
The Silk Mill, Frome, 2015
The Art Factory, Bruton, 2015
The Gallery, Shepherd Market, London, 2016
Newlyn Art Gallery, Newlyn, Penzance, 2017
Tremenheere Gallery, Penzance, 2018
David Simon Gallery, Castle Cary, October 2020
17 Lansdown Crescent, Bath, November 2020
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