Rumney spent much of his life living as a wanderer, and was variously described as both a "recluse" and a "media whore", seeing his existence as a "permanent adventure and endless experiment." Rumney married Pegeen Guggenheim, the daughter of Peggy Guggenheim. He moved, as his friend Guy Atkins said, "between penury and almost absurd affluence. One visited him in a squalid room in London's Neal Street, in a house shared with near down-and-outs. Next, one would find him in Harry's Bar in Venice, or at a Max Ernst opening in Paris. He seemed to take poverty with more equanimity than riches."
His painting The Change is in the Tate Gallery collection. He had initially gifted it to Peggy Guggenheim at the time he met her daughter Pegeen.[1]
Ralph Rumney died of cancer at his home in Manosque, Provence, France, in 2002, aged 67.
