Erik Bruun – a beloved artist

Bruun’s first works for Posti were illustrations for postal letters in the early 1980s. A postal letter was a type of pre-paid postal stationery: senders would write a message on the sheet, which, once folded, became an envelope. Postal letters were issued from 1981 to 1999.

The illustration for the 1983 postal letter was a bird’s feather secured with a seal. Pastel and pencil on card, with details in ink on film.

Bruun took his first steps in stamp design with the Centenary of Finnish bank note printing stamp book in 1985. He created the stamp sheet in collaboration with other artists at the Bank of Finland’s printing works.

Bruun’s next stamp designs depicted butterflies. The Orange-tip, Apollo and Camberwell beauty stamps were issued in 1986.

The tourism-themed Seurasaari Open-Air Museum and Saimaa stamps followed in 1991, a joint project organised by the Nordic Postal Union.991.

Designing the stamp for the 700th anniversary of Vyborg Castle was particularly meaningful for Bruun. Beneath the castle, at the foot of the stamp, appear the words ‘Suomi Finland’. This country designation is printed on every stamp, but in this case the words held special significance:

Vyborg Castle celebrated its 700th anniversary in 1993. I proposed a design showing a postal route drawn across the sky from Turku through Helsinki, Porvoo, Loviisa and Vyborg to St Petersburg. Russians were asked if they wanted to participate, but they declined, saying that they were working on other projects. Vyborg Castle with the words Suomi – Finland printed under it. I should mention here that St Petersburg was only 350 years old.

A series of bird-themed stamp sheets was first introduced in 1993 with the Water birds stamp book. Black-throated loons, a goosander, a red-breasted merganser and a mallard couple are immortalised in a lakescape tinted in hues of blue.

The book of water bird stamps was designed on the shores of a lake in the wilds of Loppi, where you can hear the call of the black-throated loon every evening in the early summer. I’m not the only one who likes it – the public voted A flock of black-throated loons the most beautiful stamp that year.

Forests and trees are an important part of Finland’s natural environment, as well as a great source of inspiration for Erik Bruun. The XX World Congress of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations IUFRO was held in Tampere from 6 to 12 August 1995, and a four-stamp book designed by Bruun was issued to mark the occasion. The stamps depict the blossoms of trees from Finnish forest in fine detail.

The Waders miniature sheet (1996) continued the series of bird-themed stamps, with the idea coming from Bruun himself. The sheet was printed using offset-print in conjunction with line engraving, a rare technique by the 1990s. The series continued in 1997 with the Cranes miniature sheet.

Erik Bruun designed the 1997 Christmas stamps. His first concept sketch was issued in a slightly modified form. His proposals for the subjects were St John’s Church in Helsinki, Turku Cathedral, a village at Christmas and a candelabrum in a church. Turku Cathedral was omitted from the final series.

The Owls miniature sheet features a Eurasian eagle-owl, a boreal owl, a great grey owl and a snowy owl. The first day cover features a snowy owl in flight.

I drew this snowy owl because it is such a magnificent bird. If it cannot find sufficient food in Lapland, it may fly as far as Suomenlinna in Helsinki, as happened in the 1980s. I borrowed a snowy owl’s wing from the Natural History Museum so that I could draw the bird as seen from above.

The owl is a symbol of wisdom, so it’s quite suitable as a motif for a postage stamp, a small face value voucher.

The Summer night birds sheet features the great bittern, one source of Erik Bruun’s childhood love of birds. Bruun has immortalised this bird in posters and stamps; it is rarely seen in nature as a result of its skill at hiding.

In spring and autumn, the migration routes of millions of birds crossed the Karelian Isthmus. My father also often took us to Lake Äyräpäänjärvi, where many rare birds nested. Birds are enchanting to watch.

The sheet features a cuckoo, corncrake, European nightjar and thrush nightingale in addition to the great bittern.

This idea came to me one night. You can hear the call of these birds at nighttime in Finland if you happen to be in the right place.

There are two stamp issues that feature the Suomenlinna sea fortress, the first, issued in 2000, was based on a poster jointly designed by Erik and Sinikka Bruun in 1968.

The second was Sveaborg – Suomenlinna, produced in collaboration with Sweden Posten in 2006, which featured sailing ships in front of the fortress. The King’s Gate in Suomenlinna also features on one of the stamps in the 2014 Old castles sheet.

Seven stamp sheets designed by Erik Bruun were issued in the six years between the two Suomenlinna sheets. Their subjects included birds, UNESCO World Heritage Sites and a bear cub.
The Verla Groundwood and Board Mill (2001), Old Rauma (2002), Sammallahdenmäki Bronze Age Burial Site (2004) and Petäjävesi Old Church (2005) all depict UNESCO World Heritage sites, with a miniature sheet designed by Erik Bruun commissioned for each of them.

The UNESCO World Heritage Sites were to each be commemorated on a stamp. Verla is the old board mill of my former client, Kymi. Although it ceased operations long ago, in 1964, it was wisely preserved as a museum factory.

Old Rauma was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1991. I explored the maritime town and marvelled at how ornate the houses of the seafaring people were.

I visited the site to see Sammallahdenmäki for myself. The cairns were built on the cliffs 2,000–3,000 years ago. Due to land uplift, they now stand on a hill that is 30 metres high. The upper part of the sheet depicts the past landscape. The stamps show stones decorated with lichen.

Petäjävesi Old Church was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1994. It is a true attraction and a fine example of traditional carpentry skills. From now on, I want the site’s name to appear prominently on the sheet of stamps.

The Woodpeckers stamp sheet was issued in 2001, only a month after the Verla Groundwood and Board Mill stamps. Like Bruun’s other bird-themed stamp sheets, the theme was his idea.

I included two trees on the woodpecker sheet: an aspen and a dead pine. Old dead trees are like blocks of flats for woodpeckers, home to many woodpeckers’ nests, often made by black woodpeckers. It is easier to peck a nest cavity into an old aspen.

Finland’s national bird, the whooper swan, has appeared on several stamps, and Erik Bruun designed three of them across two issues. Finland’s national animal, the bear, appears as a smiling cub on a stamp designed by Bruun in 2004.

Bruun’s first design themed on the swan was issued in 2002 and features a whooper swan in flight.

Erik Bruun continued creating art well into his nineties. His most recent stamp sheet, Whooper Swan, comprising two different stamps, was issued in 2019, when he was 93.

The swan is an awe-inspiring animal. A swan couple live together for a long time and take loving care of their chicks. I used to observe swans and other water birds keenly in Lake Inari, and I have great respect for them.
I wanted one of the stamps to show what a whopper swan does with its long neck as it tears water plants from the bottom of the lake with its strong beak.

The bear cub’s playful smile resembles Erik Bruun’s familiar classic, Saimaa Ringed Seal (1974), which later became the emblem of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation. Bruun designed forest-themed illustrations and beautiful bear paw prints for the postmark on the Bear Cub first day cover.

Bruun’s drawings of the six best-known Finnish castles, almost photographic in their detail, offer impressive evidence of his masterly skills as an artist. The images are from the approved sketches. Pencil, colour pencil and ink on paper.

When drawing birds’ feathers, plumage and animals, Erik Bruun has used both living animals and specimens from the collections of natural history museums as his models. For example, Bruun drew the Saimaa ringed seal from a living model at Särkänniemi Aquarium. According to Bruun, the seal smiled when it saw the finished drawing.

As references for plumage, he used loose feathers shed by mallards that he fed in his garden as well as dead birds.
The Bird Feathers proposal was not approved, but one feather drawing from the series was issued as a stamp.

The idea for my stamp is based on a tradition dating back more than a hundred years. A feather was attached to the corner of the envelope of a letter with sealing wax to mark it as express mail.

The Edible Mushrooms stamp book features five edible mushrooms depicted by five designers. The Chanterelle stamp and the illustration of a mushroom basket on the booklet cover are by Erik Bruun.

Of the three most recent stamp releases designed by Erik Bruun, two sheets are bird themed: Arctica and Whooper Swan, which is discussed in connection with the Swan stamp. The idea for the Arctica miniature sheet came to Bruun at his home in Suomenlinna:

I got the ideas for these stamps when large flocks of birds flew over Suomenlinna.

The quote is from a piece of paper found among the sketches for the stamps.

As a hobbyist fisherman, Erik Bruun had access to real specimens when drawing fish. The sketches for the Pikeperch and Vendace stamp sheet, with their silver highlights and scale-patterned sheet margins, are richly detailed.

The Postal Museum wishes this much-loved graphic artist very happy centenary celebrations and offers the warmest thanks for his collaboration.
Erik Bruun’s Birds exhibition at the Postal Museum’s collaborative space Kupla in Vapriikki proved extremely popular in early 2026. Many visitors were touched and inspired to draw birds themselves.