A Legacy of Remembrance: Romain de Plas ’89 and 9/11

On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Saints came together for a special School Meeting to offer prayers for those lost and reflect on the life and work of Canterbury alumnus Romain de Plas ’89, whose paintings of the Twin Towers offer a deeply personal meditation on the tragedy. Former faculty members, including Lou and J.P. Mandler P '91, '94, '99, Viv & Guy Simonelli '89, '91, '92, '99, Kim Tester, and Marc Vanasse '73, returned to the hilltop to join in the gathering of remembrance. Romain’s mother, Bobbie Gootrad, was also in attendance and has generously loaned a collection of her son’s artwork to Canterbury for a special exhibition in the Edward J. Duffy Family Art Gallery, including all eight extant paintings from his 9/11 series.

Romain was born in Paris in 1971 and moved to New York City when he was 9. In 1986, he transferred to Canterbury as a sophomore. Mrs. Gootrad fondly recalls Canterbury as a community that went “above and beyond” to make her son feel welcome. Romain, in turn, extended that spirit to others.

“Romain was very gregarious,” recalled Kip Moore ’90. “He started talking to me about the comic books I had in my room, and before you knew it we were best friends. Over the years, he introduced me to a lot of music and other things that I never would have otherwise been aware of.”

During his time as a Saint,  Romain was involved in community service, the School literary magazine, and Varsity Tennis. He won the Francis T. Carmody Prize Award for Creative Talent in Poetry in his senior year and was deeply committed to visual art.

Romain’s passion for drawing and painting was nurtured through adversity. When he was 7 years old, he suffered a traumatic sledding accident that necessitated extensive facial surgeries throughout his life. During periods of recovery, Romain escaped into his work, painting up to 15 hours a day for months at a time. In a 2000 interview, he described creating art as ”a very therapeutic painkiller. While I'm making it, I can detach so incredibly from my situation." 

After studying art at Brown University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Romain moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where he lived until 2001. From his apartment and studio, he had a view of the Twin Towers. Though he was not in New York on 9/11, he was profoundly moved by the tragedy and began working on an Impressionistic painting of the towers that very morning. When it was done, Romain planned a series that depicted the buildings in a range of moods; each is a meditation on the horror of the attacks and their aftermath.

On the first anniversary of 9/11, Romain invited friends to the East Village to share the series so far. He died days later at the age of 31, having painted nine of the 11 planned works. In 2011, eight of these paintings were exhibited at the Museum of the City of New York in honor of the tenth anniversary of the tragedy. 

“You were not yet born when the events of 9/11 happened,” said Head of School Caroline Blatti. “So it is our responsibility to ensure that you develop the capacity for deep empathy and genuine curiosity about the past, and we can do that through art, which transcends space and time. It gives meaning to things that are, in some ways, incomprehensible. Romain’s series represents one important chapter in his body and work, and by inviting Canterbury back into Romain’s story, I do believe that we are the ones who are blessed.”

Visit the Duffy Art Gallery to experience Romain’s work, on display through September 30.

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