Gust Romijn - Early 1950s monochrome E.A. Lithograph "girl at the harbour" signed in pencil - Sold

• Gust Romijn was a sculptor, painter and graphic artist. He was trained as an architect and started painting and sculpting in 1943. With Piet Roovers and Louis van Roode he formed the Venstergroep in the 1950s, a collection of young Rotterdam graphic artists who worked in the studio 't Venster.

Romijn made a mural of six by two meters for the exhibition E55, the National Energy Manifestation in 1955, in which Karel Appel, Constant and Wessel Couzijn also participated. He joined the Liga Nieuwe Beelden and took part in the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958.
In the 1960s he lived in New York for a while, where he laid the foundation for his later work of color-painted steel sculptures. He then became a teacher at the Rotterdam Academy – where he taught Joep van Lieshout, among others – and the Vrije Academie in The Hague. In the 1970s he was the regular designer of the posters of Poetry International and Film International in his hometown of Rotterdam.
Romijn's work was shown twice at ARTZUID. During the first edition (2009), his Paperclip (1967) was on display – simple and sleek in form in bright yellow. Eight years later, in 2017, his Twee kolomen (Two Columns) was there, also sleek, simple and in bright red. The repetition seems to accentuate the spatiality of the environment. Because his work often remained at the intersection of visual art and architecture, Romijn preferred to call himself a 'sculptor' rather than a sculptor.
Romijn's works can be seen in various places in the Netherlands, such as Dinner Time (Amersfoort), the monument commemorating the 1953 Flood Disaster (Ouwerkerk), The Beacon (Schiphol) and several in Rotterdam, including in front of various hospitals.
Romijn died in 2010 in his hometown of Dreischor.