GICLEE CANVAS OIL PAINTING "VILLAGE HIDEWAY" BY HOWARD BEHRENS

This Limited Edition, Hand Signed gorgeous, Heavily Embellished Giclee on Stretched Canvas is entitled "Village Hideaway" by Howard Behrens. So intensely texturized/embellished that it almost looks 3-D. It is almost indistinguishable from the original oil. In the original painting, there were three versions. Howard did three versions of Village Hideaway:

1998 – 36” x 48”

1999 – 38” x 50”

2000 – 25.5” x 34”

2001 - Special Commission for Lydia Barcello – 24" x 36"

This painting is part of the 2010 Five Carat Diamond Collection, a special edition for an Art Connoisseur Cruise Ship. The texturized state-of-the-art process is a proprietary technology called "Genesis" based on many years of research in collaboration with scientists from the 3M corporation. First, an impression is made from an original oil (with a palette knife texture), which is then superimposed on a high-resolution giclee on canvas. The resultant product is a replica of the original oil. The final piece is then heavily embellished, numbered, and signed.
This piece is in excellent condition and has been framed.

"Village Hideaway" is a limited edition texturized giclee on stretched canvas by Howard Behrens (1933-2014); some were numbered and bear the artist's official signature. A texturized giclee is a proprietary medium with a mold made from the original oil painting as a basis for the giclee. It included a Certificate of Authenticity. It measures approximately 32" x 24".

Born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised near Washington, D.C., Howard Behrens (1933-2014) grew up during the 1930s and '40s. His father was a printer, and his mom was an artistic soul with a flair for design. When he received his first watercolor set in third grade, young Behrens enjoyed painting, known as "the Artist," in school, where he contributed artwork to the newspaper and yearbook. A sledding accident at seventeen kept him bedridden for months, so he decided to be an artist for good. He went on to earn a Master's degree in painting and sculpture from the University of Maryland, College Park. Throughout a long career as a government graphic artist, Behrens also traveled extensively and continued to develop his talent and explore new techniques, mainly inspired by exotic tropical locales and the quite different beauty of European architecture.

Behrens was one of the world's most renowned palette artists. He was inspired to create his many masterpieces with a palette knife, tool artists traditionally use to mix oil paints before applying them to the canvas with a paintbrush. "I kept changing my style," he explains. "I feel like every painting is a prerequisite for the next painting. You come across something that rings a bell and start thinking differently, and you continue with that new technique, style, or subject matter. That's how I eventually got into palette knife painting. It was an evolutionary thing."

This evolution to today's rich, distinctive, texturized style has garnered Behrens numerous accolades and honors, including an appointment as an official artist of the 2002 Winter Olympics and accepting many of his pieces into permanent museum archives around the world. Experimentation, says this modern master, is crucial to his success. "I slowly started using the palette knife to paint on the canvas, starting very fine and thin...then, it got thicker and heavier. Finally, the most amazing thing happened: the act of painting became the subject matter."

Behrens approached his creations with what he calls "controlled spontaneity." He can always find worthwhile subject matter wherever he goes, armed with a camera and sketch pad. Back in the studio, images and ideas come together, and sometimes Behrens finds himself applying paint with a palette knife, and other times, he'll splash paint onto a canvas and create art by removing it with the knife. His work reflects artists such as Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisely, and Italian palette knife painter Nicola Simbari. At heart, Behrens considers himself an expressionist who has integrated the spontaneous nature of the Impressionist painters.

Often called the "Monet of the 21st Century, " Behrens pioneered the hand-embellished serigraph print. By the early 1980s, his career was taking off - galleries and exhibition show from Palm Beach, Florida, to 5th Avenue, Manhattan, to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills featured Behrens's richly textured, the distinctive palette-knife technique to rave reviews. In light of this success, he began publishing limited edition serigraphs with the added feature of personally had-embellishing each print. His ability to work quickly and decisively with his trusty knife made these creations truly unique yet available to a much broader fan base of eager collectors.

In 2000, Behrens created a collection of works inspired by Monet's gardens in Giverny, France, entitled "A Tribute to Monet." The show was on exhibit at the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., in October 2001, and a series of limited-edition prints were created from that collection.

Also a top-selling artist on Princess Cruise Lines, Behrens enjoyed making many in-house artist appearances on art-themed cruises and Connoisseur's Cruises until his semi-retirement in 2011 due to Parkinson's Disease. The spacious manor that was a private studio and home to Behrens and his wife for many years was known as "Villa Behrens" and was featured in many design magazines and on HGTV - it was designed and built as a reflection of the artist's multitude of paintings. It sold in 2011 but lived in pictures on the Behrens' website, put up in answer to the demand of his many fans.

Sadly, Behrens passed away on April 14, 2014. His memory will live on in the hearts of his friends, family, and collectors across the globe. All limited editions are sold out.