WEDNESDAY, MAY 2: David L. White has donated the most significant gift to date to the Bermuda National Gallery’s Bermuda Collection.

Yesterday afternoon — on the first day of Heritage Month — Mr White, OBE, Chairman Emeritus and trustee for BNG, gave over a collection of 51 paintings including some of the most significant American impressionist artists who visited and documented the island.

Included in the collection are well-known artists such as Ogden Pleissner, E Ambrose Webster and William Chadwick as well as local artists such as Alfred Birdsey and Charles Lloyd Tucker.

Mr White, who was chairman of the gallery for 11 years and has donated to it a total of 77 paintings, said: “These pictures never looked so good in my house.  I will miss them.

“They weren’t properly lit but when you see them here they kind of glow. “That is particularly true of the Ogden Pleissner (right) which really does sparkle off the wall.

“I never really thought of this collection as belonging to me. When I was doing it, I always thought that at some time or another it had to come to Bermuda because that was where it belonged.”

The gallery’s current Chairman Gary Phillips, OBE, said of the donation: “It tells the story of Bermuda — it’s a slice of the Bermudian story through the eyes and paintings of those persons who came from overseas and loved the island.

“The fact that David White has given us this collection in our care is significant in that this is our 20th anniversary year so the gift is absolutely enormous but it is a demonstration of someone whose heart has always been with the BNG.

“Over the years, just like the European Collection it will be brought out every so often.”

Mr White, former editor of the Royal Gazette, added: “It is my hope that other people who may own Bermudian treasures will join me and give them to the BNG.”