Father Robert de Caluwé, 1913-2005, began painting icons in the 1940s and led many courses. He founded an ecumenic centre in Esboo near Helsinki, Finland, where the message of icon-painting was made live - the icon-painting that existed before Church was split into an Eastern and a Western branch and is consequently ecumenical in character. He wanted to show all that unite the Christian churches. Father Robert held about 30 courses in Söråker, near Sundsvall, Sweden, where also his in Sweden best-known icon, Segertecknet (Sign of Victory), was to be seen, before it was mowed to The Cathedral of Härnösand. Father Robert painted in the Novgorod tradition and was my teacher for more than ten years.
I was born in 1934. When my professional career in school was coming to an end, I began studying water-colour painting and in 1993 I attended my first course in icon-painting with Father Robert. After that I attended courses twice a year with him until his death in 2005.