Caroline Romer was born in 1955 in Hertfordshire, England. Her mother, Philippa Romer, and her grandmother, Hilda Kidman, were both portrait painters. As a child Caroline posed for them many times and the studio with its particular smells and objects became her second home. 

Following a foundation course in Cambridge, Caroline studied for a degree course at the Byam Shaw School (1974/78) in London where she specialised in painting. During her degree show Lawrence Gowing, then Principal of the Slade School of Fine Art, encouraged her not to do a postgraduate course but to leave art school altogether and find her own way as a painter. Gowing’s words confirmed for Caroline her own yearning to head South. 

During the summer of 1974 she hitch-hiked to India and the following year, to Morocco. These journeys opened up a life-long interest in combining her painting with travelling.

In 1978, Caroline took on a teaching job in Barcelona, and there she met David Marzo, a sculptor student. They married and moved to the Spanish Pyrenees. The mountains and their people became, and continue to be, a strong source of inspiration. The combination of the figure(s) in the landscape is at the core of her work.

In 1982 Caroline had her first solo show in London. She has continued to show in London ever since and has also had exhibitions in Barcelona, Céret in France, and the Pyrenees.

Today she has three bases from which she works: Devon, in the Touraine in France, and in Gavàs in the Pyrenees. She also continues to travel broadly outside Europe. Her recent exhibitions in London have showcased her work from journeys to Burma and India (2012), Ghana (2014), New Mexico (2016), Benin (2018), Japan (2020), Colonsay in the Hebrides (2022), and Suriname (2024).

Next year she has planned an exhibition in the Pyrenees in August and one in London in October.