Howard Behrens (1933-2014) American, Embellished Giclee Artists Proof. Title: "Sunset Over St. Peters." Depicts Saint Peter's Basilica, a Renaissance-style church in Vatican City on the west bank of the Tiber River, at magic hour. Signed bottom left and numbered AP 19/25. Artists proofs are extremely limited runs usually given to the artist and not normally meant for sale to the public, making this piece very rare. 

Overall Size: 29 x 36 3/4 in. 

Sight Size: 23 1/2 x 31 1/2 in. 

Howard Chesner Behrens was born on August 20th, 1933 in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up near Washington, D.C. He began drawing at age seventeen after being confined to bed following a sledding accident. His formal education in art was at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he earned a bachelors and master’s degree in painting and sculpture. Behrens was hired by the United States Government Printing Office, where his father was employed as a printer, and worked there for the next seventeen years. In his retirement he focused again on painting, becoming a very popular artist as his works were sold in fine art galleries, at auctions, on cruise ships, and in several major retail and wholesale outlets. He developed a style of using a palette knife to paint on canvas, sometimes making incredibly thick and heavy works that used post-Impressionist techniques to combine his interests in travel, photography, and color theory. After Behrens’ second marriage he resided in Potomac, Maryland, where he died on April 14th, 2014 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.