A nature lover and dedicated supporter of the arts made his home on the island for decades after chancing upon Bermuda during a holiday.

George Peterich, a trustee of the Bermuda National Gallery and a former president of the Bermuda Botanical Society, was known for his inquisitive mind and broad store of knowledge.

Born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Mr Peterich was an air enthusiast and licensed pilot who helped to found the city’s flying club in 1963.

He flew extensively in the United States during the 1960s, when he studied economics.

Mr Peterich met his wife, Marijke, at the Rotterdam Flying Club in 1971.

The couple, who often flew together in rallies, married in 1974.

An adventurous traveller whose trips included hiking, honeymooning in the Antarctic and horseback safaris, Mr Peterich fell in love with Bermuda during a visit in 1982 and moved here with his family that year.

The couple were generous donors to charitable causes on the island.

Mr Peterich also served on the English Speaking Union, while his wife shared his love of volunteering, giving much of her time at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

Gary Phillips, the chairman of the BNG, called him “a restless and indefatigable enthusiast of the arts” who served on the gallery’s fine art trust for nearly three decades.

Jay Bluck, a founding trustee and former Hamilton mayor, invited Mr Peterich to join the BNG and share his “encyclopaedic intelligence of the arts across many disciplines”.

Peter Lapsley, the gallery’s executive director, said: “He was a tireless champion of art and design who approached his passions with an unflinching sincerity and adherence to a quality of craft and concept.

“This was never more apparent than in George's role as a BNG trustee and committee member, where he was not one to accept the status quo and was certainly not willing to agree to an exhibition or collection without a spirited discussion.”

He said that Mr Peterich’s “focus on fidelity” helped to make the difference between a good show and a great one.

Mr Lapsley added: “The world was a more interesting place with George in it and he will be deeply missed.”

Sophie Cressall, the gallery’s curator, said that Mr Peterich’s general knowledge ranged through art and history to encompass “language, culture, birds, plants and flying, to name just a few areas of interest”.

She added that he was “the kindest and the most thoughtful person I have had the privilege of knowing”.

Ms Cressall said: “He would lend me art books, and critically analyse whether the German, Dutch, French or English version was more successful, and then describe the experience he had when seeing the original artwork.

“I cherished these conversations, as I am sure many others who had similar conversations with him did.

“George always listened and considered the many perspectives people had, yet held you to account if your perspective was not thought through.”

Mr Peterich traced his love of nature to 1940, when his family got bombed out of their home in Rotterdam early in the Second World War.

They moved into a cottage by the forest in the Dutch village of Elspeet, where he grew up immersed in the natural world.

A keen birdwatcher, Mr Peterich furthered his passion for botany in Bermuda.

Lisa Greene, the former president of the Bermuda Botanical Society, said that Mr Peterich appeared at the botanical gardens in Paget, where she worked, shortly after moving to the island.

“George always had at least one question and usually multiple questions,” Ms Greene said.

“It could be a plant that he was trying to identify or something he was trying to figure out. He loved to share his findings with like-minded people.

“He liked to say ‘the more you look, the more you see’ — and George was always looking, which is why he had so many questions.”

He pitched in with the founding of the society in 1985 and remained immersed in the group from its inception, serving as president as well as on its executive committee.

Mr Peterich was a long-serving member of its scholarship committee.

He was an early volunteer tour guide at the Bermuda Botanical Gardens and remained a guide for many years, also writing prolifically for the society’s newsletter and contributing specimens to the museum at the gardens as well as the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum & Zoo.

Ms Greene added: “A visit from George brightened up the day.”

Mr Peterich was a driving force behind a major exhibition of paintings of ocean life launched in 1996 by the BNG in collaboration with BAMZ.

The show melded his passion for art and science, spotlighting the historic work of William Beebe, the American naturalist whose bathysphere expeditions into the deep sea off Bermuda made headlines around the world in the early 1930s.

The artist Else Bostelmann illustrated Beebe’s discoveries of deep-sea life in a series of watercolours.

Mr Peterich not only curated the exhibition at the national gallery but paid to have paintings restored.

The artwork came from the aquarium as well as the Bermuda Archives.

Will Collieson, an artist who helped to design the show, told The Royal Gazette: “It’s fascinating to realise that nobody really saw the significance of these paintings until George saw them hanging around in the aquarium and decided that something should be done with them, and so introduced them to a wider public.”

Ms Greene called him “a grand guy — generous, interesting, kind”.

“I will miss him.”

Mr Peterich, who spent his last days back in Elspeet, continued to fly well into his 70s, and the Rotterdam Flying Club performed an aerial tribute to him on the day of his funeral on June 9.

He had four children: Jasper and Joris, sons, and daughters Flora and Bregitta.

• Daniel George Peterich, a founding member of the Rotterdam Flying Club and a patron of the arts in Bermuda, was born on May 14, 1936. He died on June 2, 2023, aged 87