HOWARD BEHRENS

Howard Chesner Behrens has an interest in art that dates back to his childhood, when he turned to painting to fill the hours in bed convalescing from a broken leg. Born in 1933 in Chicago, he was raised in a suburb of Washington, D.C. After a stint in the military, he attended junior college where encouragement from a professor led him to explore the field of medical art.

After obtaining the prerequisites and a BA from the University of Maryland, Behrens entered the Medical Arts School of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Although the highly technical demands of medical art were good discipline for him, he found that medical illustration was not where his heart was. He returned to the University of Maryland to obtain a Masters Degree in painting and sculpture.

In addition to his absorption in painting, Behrens was employed by the U.S. Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C. from 1964 - 1981, serving as their chief artist for ten years. During this period he experimented with various painting styles. It was in 1976, after a trip to the West Coast, that Behrens reached a major turning point - the adoption of his powerful palette - knife style, which he has since used exclusively.

Like so many artists, inspiration for Behrens comes mainly from his extensive travels. "During the summer months I would travel the East Coast beaches and bay areas looking for inspiration," he remarks. "It seems the warm climates and bright sunshine affected my style and choice of subject matter significantly."

Whatever the subject matter, Behrens is presenting a world of physical beauty. Bathed in sunlight and touched by sea breezes, it is a world where man and nature exist in perfect harmony. And it is a world towards which more and more collectors of fine art are drawn, discovering there, in the artwork of Howard Behrens, unlimited visual pleasures.