UPCOMING EXHIBITION | JUNE 18 - NOVEMBER 26, 2010
PREVIOUS
The David L. White Collection
Vivienne J. Gardner: A Tribute
The History of Art in Bermuda
The David L. White Collection captures impressions of Bermuda’s scenic landscape through luminous shadows and vibrating light. This comprehensive collection of paintings traces the development of art in America during the beginning of the 20th Century, from late American Impressionism to early Modernism.
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Vivienne J. Gardner’s stained glass artwork places the viewer in a realm of pure experience. Harnessing light and manipulating it through a complex composition of colour and tone, these windows leave the viewer with feelings of transcendence and awe.
In celebration of Bermuda's 400 years, Bermuda National Gallery and Bermuda National Trust have come together to showcase the evolution of art across four centuries. While in no means a definitive exhibition, what is achieved is a critical exploration of how Bermuda's life and art has evolved over time in response to changing social, political, and economical forces. Divided into four historical periods separated by centuries, the exhibition demonstrates how the art of each era both reflects and contributes to the complex narrative of Bermuda.
2009
WINTER - SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
Changing Gears: The Art of the Bermuda Motorcycle
African Art in Motion
The History of Art in Bermuda: A Focus on Photography
Contemporary Conversations: Kevin Morris
2008
WINTER EXHIBITIONS
Cultural Reflections: Inuit Art from the Collection of the Dennos Museum Center and The Judith Varney Burch Collection
African Affinities
Tribute to Byllee Lang
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
The Bacardi Limited Biennial 2008 Exhibition of Bermuda Contemporary Art.
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
2007
WINTER EXHIBITIONS
New Acquisitions: Recent Gifts to the Bermuda National Gallery
The Art of Drama: Kabuki Theatre through Woodblock Prints
European Collection: 1500 - 1900
African Collection
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
John Kaufmann: A Retrospective – Essential Elements: 1947 – 2007
Hair in African Art
European Collection: 1500 - 1900
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
Living with Art: Modern & Contempory African American Art from the Collection of Alitash Kebede
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
2006
SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
The Bacardi Limited Biennial, 2006
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS
The Young Collection: An Enduring Legacy
Rembrandt Etchings: Impressions of Genius (1606-2006 Celebrating 400 years)
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
2005
WINTER EXHIBITIONS
Yoshitoshi: The Last Japanese Woodblock Print Artist
Tribute to Charles Lloyd Tucker
Tribute to Robert Barritt
European Collection: 1500 - 1950
African Collection
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
Sharon Wilson: Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Art
Hale Woodruff: Linocuts 1931-46
Sir Frank Brangwyn, RA: Selected Works
European Collection: 1500 - 1950
African Collection: Celebrating the Diversity of African Heritage
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS
The Photography of John Athill Frith
Bill Ming: From Ship To Shore
The European Collection: 1500 – 1900
The African Collection: celebrating the Diversity of African Heritage
WINTER EXHIBITIONS
Charles Zuill Retrospective: The Science of Art
The European Collection: 1500 – 1900
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
The African Collection: celebrating the Diversity of African Heritage
2004
WINTER EXHIBITIONS
Landscape: A Poetic Vision
A Tribute to Georgine Hill
A Tribute to deForest Trimingham
The Bermuda Collection
SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
Bacardi Limited Biennial 2004 (Juried by Kendal Henry & Bruce Katsiff)
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS
Painting Bermuda: 200 years of Changing Tradition
Peter Woolcock: The Early Days Of…
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
European Collection: 1500 - 1950
2003
WINTER EXHIBITIONS
The Fine Art of Japanese Prints
The Ideal Collection – 350 years of Bermudian Art
Coash and Jones: Photographs
The European Collection
SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
Lee Miller
Prayers in the Wind (Public Art Installation in Portico of City Hall – by Kendra Ezekiel)
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
The European Collection
The Education Centre
AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS
Inside & Out: House & Home
Winslow Homer in Bermuda (Organised by The Masterworks Foundation)
The Bermuda Collection: 350 Years of Art in Bermuda
2002
WINTER EXHIBITIONS
ART: New Genre, New Directions
In a New York Frame of Mind (In collaboration with The Masterworks Foundation)
Bermuda Sightings: Phil Bergerson photographs
SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
2002 Bacardi Limited Biennial (Juried by Dr. David Boxer, Jamaica National Gallery & Dr. Virginia Mecklenburg, Smithsonian Museum of American Art
Five Centuries of Women (selections from the Permanent Collection)
AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS
Once Upon a Time: the art of Illustrated Children’s Literature
Stories in Art (selections from the permanent collection)
The Story of Art in Bermuda
2001
WINTER EXHIBITIONS
From Mickey to the Grinch: Art of the Animated Film (curated by John Vanco, Erie Art Museum)
SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
The BNG Permanent Collections [European, African, Photography, Bermudian and Contempary]
AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS
Man of Mystery: The Artwork of Edward James, 1861- 1877
Focus on Colour
2000
SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
2000 Bacardi Limited Biennial (Juried by David de la Torre of Honolulu Academy of Arts & Susan Masuoka of Tufts University Gallery
AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS
Made in Bermuda: Bermudian Silver, furniture, art & design
1999
SPRING EXHIBITIONS
The Art of Collecting Art
Masterworks A to Z (Organised by The Masterworks Foundation)
SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
Chesley Trott: Sculptor and Mentor (curated by Marlee Robinson)
AUTUMN/WINTER EXHIBITIONS
A Window on the Azores: 20th Century Art from the Azores.(Organised in consultation with The Carlos Machado Museum in San Miguel, Azores)
1998
WINTER EXHIBITIONS
The Rebel Princess: Watercolours by HRH The Princess Louise
SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
1998 Bacardi Limited Biennial (Juried by Daniel Rosenfeld of PAFA and Dr. Lizetta LeFalle-Collins
Celebration II: The African Collection
Ogden Pleissner: Bermuda Inside Out (Organised by The Masterworks Foundation)
The Watlington Collection
AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS
Nancy Graves: Excavations in Print and Sculpture (traveling exhibition from American Federation of Arts)
1997
WINTER EXHIBITIONS
Through British Eyes: Images of Bermuda 1815 -1860
SPRING EXHIBITIONS
King Remembered: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement: Photographs by Flip Schulke
SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
The Next Decade: Highlights of the Masterworks Collection
AUTUMN EXHIBITIONS
Light Air and Colour: American Impressionist Paintings from the Collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, (organised by the Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts for the BNG)
1997
FEBRUARY - APRIL
Portrait of an Era: Portraiture pre-1900
The Power and the Glory: Masks of Black Africa
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
APRIL - AUGUST
Through British Eyes: Images of Bermuda 1815 - 1860 (BNG Organised Traveling Exhibition, opened at Pierpont Morgan Library, New York April 18, 1996; Opened at BNG January 31, 1997, curated by John Adams)
MAY - SEPTEMBER
Second Bermuda Biennial Exhibition
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
The Watlington Collection
JUNE
Quenching Thirst: Vintage Photography from the private collection of Tom Butterfield
The Art of Restoration: The Watlington Collection
SEPTEMBER
Celebration: The African Collection (opening of BNG permanent African Collection curated by Dr. Mary Nooter Roberts)
OCTOBER
Bostelmann Paints for Beebe (in cooperation with BAMZ)
Return of the Arkangels: selections from the Masterworks Collection
1995
JANUARY - MARCH
Portrait of a Legacy: Hereward Trott Watlington Retrospective
The Watlington Collection
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
MARCH - APRIL
Desmond Fountain: A Retrospective
Abstraction: A Survey
John Kaufmann: A Retrospective
MAY
Carib Art: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean (traveling exhibition organised by UNESCO)
JUNE - SEPTEMBER
Charles Zuill: A Summer Series
The Watlington Collection
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
A Mystery Revealed: Gaspard LeMarchant Tupper
SEPTEMBER
Into Print: The Techniques of Printmaking
The Watlington Collection
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
1994
JANUARY
The Little Green Door: The Tucker Sisters
Charles Lloyd Tucker: Influence & Inspiration (Organised by The Masterworks Foundation)
Modern Art: 20th Century International art loaned from private collections
The Watlington Collection
MARCH
Bill Ming: The Home Comin’
MAY
The Fine Art of Bermuda Maps: 1511-1861
The Watlington Collection
Ladies Choice: Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
JUNE
Celebration of Excellence: First Juried Bermuda Biennial
The Watlington Collection
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
OCTOBER
Bermuda Respite: Georgia O’Keeffe in Bermuda (Organised by The Masterworks Foundation)
Pop Goes the Easel: Pop & Op Art
The Watlington Collection
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
1993
MARCH - JUNE
Richard Saunders Photographs
Visual Poetry II
The Watlington Collection
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
JUNE - SEPTEMBER
Shaping a Capital: Hamilton’s First Century
The Watlington Collection
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
OCTOBER - SEPTEMBER
Secrecy: African Art that Conceals and Reveals (traveling exhibition from the Museum for African Art, NY, curated by Dr. Mary (Polly) Nooter Roberts)
1992
MARCH
Some of What We Have: Selections from Local Collections
The Watlington Collection
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
APRIL
Some of What We Have II
The First Drawings and Watercolours of Bermuda
Alfred Birdsey: A Tribute
The Watlington Collection
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
JUNE
18th, 19th and 20th Century Marine Paintings
Sam Morse Brown: A Tribute
The Watlington Collection
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
SEPTEMBER
Visual Poetry (curated by David Mitchell)
Sharon Wilson: A Retrospective
The Watlington Collection
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
DECEMBER
Icons and Stained Glass
The Watlington Collection
Selections from The Masterworks Bermudiana Collection
PERMANENT
The BNG’s PERMANENT COLLECTION numbers more than 350 works by local and international artists organized into six distinct collections:
The AFRICAN COLLECTION is a selection of figures, masks and royal regalia which celebrate people, relationships, and values central to the African culture.
The BERMUDA COLLECTION includes paintings, furniture, photographs and sculpture made in, or inspired by, Bermuda and date back to the 17th century.
The CONTEMPORARY COLLECTION is a selection of paintings, graphics and sculptures that have been completed over the last century.
The EUROPEAN (WATLINGTON) COLLECTION includes a historic collection of paintings that span four centuries and represent Dutch, English, Flemish, German, Italian and Spanish artists such as George Romney, and Thomas Gainsborough.
The PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION is a selection of black and white photographs by international photojournalist Bermudian Richard Saunders.
The PRINT COLLECTION includes a selection of Hale Woodruff linocuts which depict powerful images of African American life from the artist’s Atlanta period (1930 – 1940).
Artwork in Bermuda National Gallery’s Permanent Collection has been obtained through purchase, gifts to the Gallery and items that are on long-term loan. It also includes pieces that are under consideration for purchase.
THE BERMUDA COLLECTION
The permanent collection is a concise history of the development of the fine and decorative arts in Bermuda over the last 350 years.
Presented as an historical timeline, our permanent exhibition follows the artistic, historical and cultural development of Bermuda through its decorative and fine arts from 1624 to the present day. The Gallery’s Permanent Collection is complemented by significant private loans focusing on Bermuda’s early decorative arts of furniture and silverwork. The care of the Bermuda Collection for 2006-07 is kindly sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Steinhoff.
THE AFRICAN COLLECTION
Bermuda National Gallery’s Collection of 22 African pieces was purchased in 1996 by a cross-section of the Bermudian community, which included 15 Bermuda schools. The Collection centers on the African contribution, directly and derivatively, to our modern world. In addition, there are ten African pieces that have been gifted to the Gallery by an anonymous donor.
The Gallery’s Collection of African art is a celebration of African creativity, resilience, and the important place of beauty in everyday African life. The objects were made by African artists to celebrate persons, relationships, and values central to their own cultures. The African Collection enables us to understand more about the rich diversity of the African peoples who produced these figures, masks and royal regalia. The Collection speaks to us all, regardless of whether we are of African or some other heritage.
The Gallery’s Collection can be sub-divided into the following areas: African women – African sculpture is often created and used to celebrate women’s important roles in social life as lovers, wives, mothers and founts of wisdom. Wooden figures representing women also speak to the complementarity of the sexes that underlies conjugal and community harmony. The Gallery’s pieces specifically express and reinforce gender relations, female aesthetic values, and ethical principles of marriage and family.
Ancestors and the Otherworld – A great deal of African art is concerned with the spirit world, and the crucial links between the living and the dead. In many African societies, “eternity” is not a “forever” enjoyed or suffered by the dead in strict seclusion from the living. Rather, communities often include living and ancestral beings, and ancestral spirits possess a jural presence through which they guide and protect their living loved ones. For some, ancestors are reincarnated in grandchildren named after them. For others, ancestral spirits, both specific and generic, may inhabit a particular place created for them in the community or household. Such a shrine or altar is a threshold between the living and the dead, to be traversed in either direction in the course of everyday problem solving and in answer to crises striking the family or community, which is where one often finds “ancestor figures” playing a role.
Leadership and rule – Several works in the Collection belong to realms of political leadership and rule. Much African art is made to honour and celebrate the powers and attributes of rulers, and to express ideological principles of leadership. African systems of social organization range from highly centralized states ruled by kings, to non-centralised communities led by elders. In precolonial times, centralized rule was accomplished through a complex and well-ordered political bureaucracy. Kingdoms still exist in many parts of Africa, and while some rulers retain substantial authority, many have been reduced to symbolic roles by their national governments. Non-centralised political systems are more democratic, where councils of elders, often representing each family in a community, make decisions about the conduct of life. These wise people lead by example, rather than by intimidation or force.
Animals and nature – Animals are among the most common subjects of African art. Yet despite the great diversity of animal life in Africa, a surprisingly small number of animals are represented over and over again in African art. Some of the beasts (e.g. lions, giraffes, and rhinoceros) that non-Africans may consider “typical” of the country, are rarely, if ever, depicted at all. They simply do not answer an African sense of what is particularly meaningful. Other animals provide metaphors for human strengths and weaknesses by acting in ways that are remarkably, and sometimes frighteningly, “human”. African resilience – Most of the African works of art owned by the Gallery celebrate African traditions. However, the African interpretation of the word “tradition” refers to a dynamic, living process combining continuity and change. Africans consider tradition something that they choose to remember and use from the past, and it is something that is “creatively, actively, intentionally selected and constructed, not thoughtlessly preserved and repeated.” The Gallery’s resilience Collection includes a number of objects that effect and reflect creative transformations in precolonial, colonial and contemporary life.
The complete Collection was last displayed in 1996.
THE WATLINGTON (EUROPEAN) COLLECTION
The Watlington Collection of eighteen historic European paintings were bequeathed to the people of Bermuda by founding Trustee, the late Hon. Hereward T. Watlington (1902 – 1989) in 1989 with the proviso that the paintings be housed in a climate controlled facility to the standard of the Metropolitan Museum of New York. Since a proper climate control facility did not exist, this was the catalyst for the development of the Bermuda National Gallery, which opened its doors in 1992. The Collection is owned by the Government of Bermuda and is on permanent loan to the Gallery. The remainder of the European Collection includes paintings that have been gifted or loaned to the Gallery.
The Watlington Collection includes rare and valuable paintings from a number of well-known artists such as Gainsborough and Reynolds, who painted from the 15th to 18th centuries. It is a very personal collection that was put together over the course of 30 years by somebody who himself was a gifted artist. Mr. Watlington studied painting in Paris until his brother died during World War I and he returned home to Bermuda. Mr. Watlington believed in the longevity of the human spirit and the way it lives on through everyday life. His experiences and dreams have been captured in a breathtaking collection of his own paintings which still hang in his family home, “Woodside”, in Devonshire. In addition to the 18 paintings, the Gallery also holds every letter of correspondence between Hereward Watlington and his dealer in England.
Because of his love affair with art, Mr. Watlington died a happy man on a garden bench in Versailles, France in 1989.
THE PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION
The works of esteemed international photojournalist, Bermudian Richard Saunders currently owned by the Gallery, form a collection of international reputation.
Richard Clive Saunders (1922 – 1987) was a photographer all of his life. Richard began learning his art by following a local photographer around the streets of Hamilton as a young schoolboy. Later he worked as a police photographer and established a reputation here for his portraits, but feeling that there was no scope for a black photographer in the Bermuda of 1947, he moved to New York City to take courses at the Modern Photography School, Brooklyn College and the New School for Social Research. During those years he freelanced in New York with his new wife, Emily, acting as his assistant on assignments. His talents were quickly recognized and his work soon began appearing on the covers of such publications as Life, Look, Fortune, Ebony, The New York Times, Ladies’ Home Journal and Paris Match.
In 1967, he joined the United States Information Agency (USIA) as international editor and photographer of Topic, a quarterly magazine published in English and French for sub-Saharan Africa. He visited more than 30 countries and photographed everything from heads of state to village elders, from massive dams to small rural co-operatives, and from big industries to tiny boutiques.
Saunders liked to get close to the people he photographed and relied on a wide-angle lense. On the first day of each assignment he would go without his cameras in an effort to build a special rapport with his subjects. The following day he would go with his cameras and penetrate the surface into the spirit of his subject. Saunders did this without fanfare. He loved the process of getting good pictures more than the process of publishing.
In an interview with the prestigious Swiss magazine, Camera, Saunders stated: “What matters to me are people and their feelings; above all it is the unconquerable dignity of man, of whatever colour, creed or persuasion that must come through in my photographs. Photography is communication; a photograph is nothing unless it is seen, and unless it conveys something of life to the viewer.”
Among the noted personalities and famous figures he photographed were Henry Kissinger, Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammed, James Baldwin, Leonard Bernstein (part of Bermuda National Gallery Collection), James Brown (part of Bermuda National Gallery Collection), Malcolm X (part of Bermuda National Gallery Collection), Elijah Muhammed (part of Bermuda National Gallery Collection), Emporer Haillie Salassie (part of Bermuda National Gallery Collection), Roy Wilkins, Adam Clayton Powell, Aaron Copeland, Louise Nevelson, and Terence Stamp (part of Bermuda National Gallery Collection).
Mr. Saunders, who became an American citizen, was the recipient of many honours, including USIA’s Superior Honour Award, the International Black Photographer’s Award; and a USIA exhibit of his work was circulated throughout Africa for two years. He was also the recipient of the Bermuda Arts Council’s first annual lifetime achievement award.
Saunders retired in 1986 and died on August 20th, 1987.
In 1992, unique legislation was passed through an act of Congress to allow Saunders’ work to be transferred from the USIA to the Schomburg Center for Black Culture in Harlem, New York. It was only in rare cases that USIA photographs could be published in the United States. It was at this time that Bermudian photographer Graeme Outerbridge arranged for a selection of Saunders’ 30 best black and white works to be printed and sold to the Bermuda National Gallery.
These photographs were last displayed at the Gallery in 1993.
THE PRINT COLLECTION
- coming soon
BERMUDA ARTISTS - coming soon
