“I was born in Holland, Utrecht, and have lived in Holland, Switzerland, France, Egypt, Italy and England. I studied byzantine art in Italy (Venice and Florence) and in Greece.

After the terrible flood in Venice in November 1966, I participated with the UNESCO’s creation – with many different countries in the world – of committees for saving Venice. I created my personal committee of the Geneva’s Friends of Venice with an honorary president, her majesty Queen Marie-Josè of Italy, and I also became a founding member of the Swiss Foundation Pro Venezia, which chose to restore the church of San Stae (St Eustachius) on the Grande Canale in Venice. My committee restored a particularly beautiful chapel inside, with the wonderful marble sculpture of Christ on the Cross, sculpted by the Master of the well-known sculptor Canova. To sensibilise people to the tragedy of flooded Venice I organised a conference for saving Venice at the UN in Geneva, with professor René Huyghe of the French Academy, president of the consultative committee of the UNESCO for Venice.

On another occasion, I also tried to save the Venetian craftsmen, organising a 2-month exhibition-sale in Geneva, opening a new market for them. I also organised many concerts with well-known musicians, playing for free to raise funds for the city. For these reasons I was given the Italian Order of Merit, by the Italian government and its president Andre Otti in 1978.

Over the course of my life, I specislised in Byzantine art, mosaics of Venetian Glass and marble, frescoes, sculpture, enamel and dry pastels.  I now mostly paint landscapes ‘sur le motif’ (on the spot) in dry pastels in an impressionist style.

My artistic influences and inspirations include Beato Angelico, Cimabue, Monet and Turner and I am greatly inspired by the beauty of nature’s changing colours and lights, hoping that the next generation will still be able to do so.”