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By Keith Archibald Forbes (see About Us) exclusively for Bermuda Online
To refer to this webfile, please use "bermuda-online.org/forart" as your Subject.
Royal Navy Dockyard, Bermuda, May 1847. One of the paintings by Captain Sir Michael Seymour, RN. This one shows the Dockyard from Commissioner's House, including prison hulks on the left.
Thanks primarily to the efforts of former New Yorkers Fay and Geoffrey Elliott who moved to Bermuda in 1989 and have spent lavishly abroad to acquire an extensive collection of their works in particular - and bring them back to Bermuda - we know a lot now of the military artists shown below. Their detailed landscapes and seascapes show how Bermuda developed as a naval base and land fortress bristling with guns that could heave cannonballs or shells miles out to sea to fend off invaders. The process continued through the 19th century, until the huge Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda and its protective ring of British Army manned coastal forts, were completed. You'll find some of their works in the Bermuda Archives, Bermuda Historical Society Museum, Bermuda Maritime Museum, Bermuda National Trust properties, St. George's Historical Society Museum and other galleries throughout Bermuda. Their watercolors provide remarkable views of Bermuda, before photographs and other paintings existed. They are included by name in the list shown below, which also has others.
A wife of a former Governor (Lady Laffan) and wife (Lady Lefroy) and daughter of another (Emily Lefroy) contributed their own unique talents in recording scenes of Bermuda in watercolors and oils. These too are on display in various galleries in Bermuda. Britain's famous Princess Louise (see below) also did so.
Later, many famous artists came to paint in and helped promote Bermuda. A relatively large number of artists from the New York area liked the idea of leaving behind the stress of city life to spend their winters painting in the sub-tropical climate of Bermuda. From the mid 19th century, Bermuda got American, British, Canadian, French and other artists galore. They included Frank Allison, Thomas Anschutz, Jennifer Bartlett, Gifford and Reynolds Beal, Louis Bouche, Jack Bush, Noel Bush, William Chadwick, Frank Carson, Charles Demuth, Albert Gleizes, Marsden Hartley, Charles Hawthorne, Winslow Homer, Edward K. James, Georgia O'Keeffe, John Lyman, Ogden Pleissner, Prosper Senat, Niles Spencer, Ben Shepardorn, Frank Stella, E. Ambrose Webster, M. P. West and Andrew Wyeth.
Benefactors have allowed the Bermuda National Gallery, Bermuda National Trust and Masterworks Foundation to get many of their paintings.
Fulltime and part-time artists coming to Bermuda today who are not Bermudian will need a Work Permit if they sell and display their works locally.
1866-1951. His brother was Gifford Beal, also an artist.
Reynolds Beal is well-known for his impressionist landscapes and
seascapes. A frequent visitor to Bermuda, he has several excellent works of
art relating to Bermuda in the 19th and 20th centuries. One is an oil on
canvas of the City of Hamilton
painted from across Hamilton Harbor in Paget Parish, is 29 by 36 inches and
dated 1917. Another is "The Bar at the 21 Club" - no longer
there, painted and sketched in 1940, donated to Masterworks by American
collector Robert Ryneweld. A third is a marine scene titled "St.
George's, Bermuda" 1940. Some of his Bermuda works can be seen at New
Heritage Galleries, Church Street, Bermuda.
He was the first portraitist to come to Bermuda. From 1752 to 1754, he painted quite a few local politicians and wives. Some portraits are on display in the Bermuda Historical Society Museum.
One of the Bermuda-visiting members of the American Water Color Society, formed in 1866.
In 1934, he and his wife arrived
in Bermuda on their honeymoon. He painted as much of Bermuda as he did his
bride. During his 40-year career, Jack Bush became
celebrated as one of Canada's most original colour-field painters, and the first
Canadian to take part in a major world art movement. Less well known and
understood is Bush's development to the point of this international success. He
started his career painting during nights and weekends. During the day he worked
full-time as an advertising illustrator. The demands of work and his struggles
with the parochial attitudes of the art establishment led to pressures that
affected his life and his art. The inner turmoil he suffered is well documented
in the paintings themselves, but the underlying causes of his distress have been
less understood. These causes have been revealed for the first time in recently
unsealed diaries from the AGO Archival Collection and letters from Bush to the
influential New York critic Clement Greenberg, which are held by the Smithsonian
Institution.
Frank Carson (1881
-1968)American, from Massachusetts, he featured prominently in the Masterworks Bermudiana book (pages 178-181) edited by the late Patricia Calnan. He was most active locally in the 1930s. His small post impressionist paintings "Catching Bait off St. George's" and "Ships Rounding Spanish Point" both of about 1932, were on the market in Bermuda in 2000 for $4,500 each.
Charles Demuth (1883-1935)He first visited Bermuda with Marsden Hartley during the first world war.
Thomas DriverBorn Thomas O'Brien Mills Driver in 1789, He first went to Spain, then Bermuda from England on HMS Romulus in June 1814. He never had art training but established a reputation as "Bermuda's only artist." His brother Hal was a published poet in London in the early 19th century and the family donated many family letters and art to the Cambridge University Library. Driver's father was a perfumer in Cambridge. He spent nearly 22 years in Bermuda in total, not consecutive years. He went from Bermuda to the Caribbean in 1818 and 1822 where he created accurate paintings of British, French and Dutch colonies. He returned to England on May 12, 1836. He left behind a family of fascinating genealogical heritage passed on to the present generation and much historical legacy in his artwork. His paintings have enormous significance as the Thomas Driver collection of watercolors of Bermuda. They are now owned by the private Fay and Geoffrey Elliott Collection in Bermuda and housed at the Bermuda Government Archives. There is no published record of his wife but he had two Bermudian daughters. One of them, Althea Frances Driver, married Horatio Musson of Bermuda in 1841 when she was 21. Their children were Thomas Driver Musson, born in 1842 and Susan Jane Musson, born in 1844. Thomas Driver Musson married 26 year old Eliza Wilson Robinson, the daughter of David Robinson, on October 26, 1871. Eliza Musson died in 1883 when giving birth to their seventh child. Another child died earlier in childbirth. Modern descendants come from the remaining five. They include Grace Musson Butterfield, Joanne Edwards, Dr. Ian Kawaley, Cecile Musson Smith, Elizabeth Musson Kawaley, Marlene Rogers, Joan Rogers and Victoria Pearman.
Paterson EwenBorn in 1925, a celebrated artist. While on holiday in 1994 and 1995, at the Coral Beach and Tennis Club, he produced a series of Bermuda works. They included Bermuda Moon, Whale Sitting, Coral Beach and Ocean Scene. He has made at least 10 visits.
John FinchA retired engineer who lives on the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom but used to come to Bermuda regularly to see his daughter Carolyn, also an artist, when she lived here. She too now lives on the Isle of Wight.
Janet FishAmerican, she grew up in Bermuda, visited for the first time since then in 1993.
Will Howe Foot (1874-1965)During a Bermuda visit, he painted "Old Buildings, Bermuda."
Albert Gleizes (1881-1953)Webster's works show the influence of this French cubist painter. He spent the winter of 1917 at the former St. George's Hotel in the Town of St. George, Bermuda. There he completed a number of Bermuda paintings including his "Portrait of Juliette" shown here. It is an oil on masonite and has quite a history. It was painted of Juliette when she and her husband visited Bermuda in 1917. It was exhibited only once, at the Salle Boissae in France. It had remained in the family collection until sold in November 2000 for US$170,000 at Sotheby's in New York, on behalf of the Masterworks Foundation of Bermuda. The lead donor of the cost was the Humann Foundation and an anonymous donor. This artist's "Paysage des Bermudes" is also famous in Bermuda. A friend and colleague of Picasso, he co-authored with Jean Metzinger the first book on the principles of cubism - called "Du Cubisme" - still in print today. Also, his view of Government House in Pembroke Parish is very interesting.
A. M. GravesBritish, he was certainly in Bermuda in the 1920s but very little is known about him. He may have been a Royal Navy officer or rating based at HM Dockyard. A fine example of his work is the painting below titled "The Water Carrier" - the scene of a donkey cart hauling barrels of water - probably during a drought - from what appears to be near Lagoon Park at the south end of Ireland Island in Sandys Parish. In the distance are Spanish Point in Pembroke and Hamilton Parish.
E.G. Hallewell Edmund Gilling Hallewell (1820-1869) first appeared in British military records when he was commissioned in 1839 as an ensign with 20th Regiment of Foot and he died at Sandhurst, England. He rose through the ranks retiring on half-pay as a colonel in 1860 when he was appointed the commandant of the Royal Military College at Sandhurst in 1864. His tours of duty took him to Bermuda, the Canadas, England, the Crimea and Malta. During the Crimean War, he served with distinction at Alma, Inkerman and Sebastopol, was created a Knight of the Legion of Honour and rose to the rank of Deputy Quartermaster General. Hallewell's Canadian service began at Halifax then at Quebec in 1847, he was next posted in Kingston, London and Montreal before leaving the Canadas in 1850. His residence in London, Upper Canada was from May to September 1849. As a painter, Hallewell is known for his landscapes and marines in oil and watercolour and it is probable that he trained in landscape topography as part of his early military training.. Little information is available on his early life outside his British army service.
Colonel Edmund Gilling Hallewell's fine set of panoramic lithographs of Bermuda are much admired. A fine photograph of him, taken during the Crimean War by well-known Victorian photographer Roger Fenton, is now in Bermuda. When Hallewell was in Bermuda, he was a Lieutenant in the British Army, Adjutant of the XXth Regiment of Royal Engineers stationed at Bermuda with the British garrison. Later - in the 1850s - he was a Colonel in the 20th or East Devons garrisoning Bermuda. Prior to his arrival in Bermuda, he was trained as a topographical artist, which ensured that his views of Bermuda were a very accurate record of the placement of land masses. Yet he also managed to arrange his foreground elements in a manner that was picturesque and much in fashion at the time. He sketched in charcoal the Island's many scenes of extraordinary beauty with an incredibly detailed and disciplined hand, including views of the Great Sound from the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse area, four more views of the Sound from Spanish Point and three of St. George's from St. David's Lighthouse. He called the 13-scene set "Views of the Bermudas." Otherwise known as his "Panoramic Sketches of Bermuda," they were reproduced in a series of lithographs in 1848 that have been treasured in Bermuda ever since. They are notable for their detail which so highlighted how, only a few years later, so many areas of Bermuda were so denuded of trees and foliage.
Eight of Hallewell's sketches are in the possession of the Bermuda Historical Society Museum. They show, respectively, (i) HM Dockyard, With Maria Hill, Spar Yard, Cockburn Cut, Cobbler's Island, Magazine Island, Hogfish Beacon, Cobbler's Cut, Signal Post and Casemated Barracks, Dockyard and Commissioner's House; (ii) Entrance to St. George's Harbour, with the Royal Barracks, Fort Victoria, Fort Albert and Royal Hospital, Fort Cunningham situate on Pagets Island and Fort Catherine; (iii) Road to Hamilton, featuring a Bermuda stone wall and two trees, one without foliage; (iv) Looking North West, of part of St. David's Island, Smith's Sound, Sugar Loaf Hill, St. George's Harbour, Smith's Island, Fort George and Hen Island Magazine and St. George's Town and Harbour; (v) Looking West, Somerset Narrows, Boaz Island, Ireland Island, Maria Hill, HM Dockyard and Pearl Island; (vi) Looking West (again) showing Somerset, the Royal Hospital and Ireland Island; (vii) Looking North East, showing Wreck Hill, Somerset Island, Tucker's Island and the Great Sound; and (viii) Overlooking Hamilton Harbour. This is the only one of the series signed by the artist. It shows Timlin's Narrows, Boss Cove, The Rock Passage, One Rock Passage, Oxford and Ship Passage. Little did Hallewell know at the time that his sketches would end up a century later as prized lithographs (and that 144 years later, a rare set of 13 plates of his lithographs, one of only 50 sets in existence, would be sold at the famous auction house of Sotheby's in London for 30,800 pounds (then over US$60,000). It is estimated that there are eight to ten sets of Hallewell's art in private hands in Bermuda today).
In December 2008 British auction house Holloways of Banbury sold a Hallewell complete set of 13 lithograph plates, circa 1848, entitled Views of the Bermudas or Somers Islands for £10,500 (around $15,000). The lithographs show 13 panoramic views of three different areas of Bermuda, the Spanish Point area, Port Royal area and St. George's. The prints sold in Oxfordshire were in black and white and were "considerably foxed" with spotting covering much of the artwork. Lithography, developed in 1796, is a method for printing using a plate or stone with a completely smooth surface. While the original paintings by Mr. Hallewell have probably been lost to the test of time, the plates can live on providing us a glimpse into the past. Mr. Hallewell is believed to have done all of the original artwork himself as part of his surveying duties for the military and "exercised his surveying skills" to imagine what the land would look like without any buildings or structures on them. The complete 13-piece set includes six views that form a panorama of the islands in the Great Sound seen from a hill west of Gibbs Hill lighthouse. Four views form a panorama from a hill on Spanish Point looking to the Great Sound with the shores of Warwick, Southampton and Sandys parishes beyond; and three views from near St. David's lighthouse form a panorama looking over Smith's Island to the town and parish of St. George's.
Marsden Hartley (1877 to 1943)
Winslow Homer (1836-1910)  |
He became a member of the American Water Color Society in 1876 but exhibited at its annual shows only sporadically after the 1880s. In December 1899, Bermuda welcomed him for the first time from Maine, on the steam ship Trinidad, the first ship built specifically to service Bermuda's tourism industry. In 1901, it brought him back for an extensive visit. He captured the ship on canvas as she sailed the North Channel. On March 31, 1901, he wrote to his New York dealers to advise them that he was sending them three Bermuda drawings as at that time they should attract attention due to the close for the season of Bermuda's hotels (at that time, Bermuda's high season for tourists was November to March) "Bermuda (1901)" pictured here is back home, thanks to the Christian Humann Foundation. It donated $30,000 to the acquisition by Bermuda's Masterworks Foundation which pioneered the repatriation of Bermuda's artworks by famous artists. |
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Homer painted at least 21 Bermuda watercolors. In 1901, they were exhibited at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Homer was awarded a gold medal. Also in 1901, he selected a quiet spot in Southampton near the Great Sound for a splendid scene on a 21 by 14.5 inches canvas. It was "Inland Waterway" pictured here. It shows Granaway Deep, with Marshall's and Darrell's Islands in the background. The historic home on the left is Spithead, later the home of American dramatist Eugene O'Neill, Charles Chaplin and British playwright Sir Noel Coward. |
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After many years in the USA, the painting finally returned to Bermuda in 1992, with a price tag of $700,000, paid by Bermuda's Masterworks Foundation, with some help from friends of Bermuda. Homer was hugely intrigued by Bermuda's early history and how the first involuntary settlers off the wrecked Sea Venture in 1609 found wild hogs as food. He painted them in " Bermuda Settlers -1901" pictured here (and on a Bermuda postage stamp years later). The hogs were dropped in the water by 15th century Spanish and Portuguese sailors who used Bermuda as a navigational landmark to Mexico and beyond. |
They knew the hogs would swim to shore and breed. They were food for shipwrecks on Bermuda's dangerous reefs.
Edward K. James Died in Bermuda in 1877.
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James - not his
real name but one he used - was born sometime in 1820. Clearly, he was from England. He arrived in Bermuda by accident
on November 22, 1861, when his ship the "Devonshire" limped into Bermuda in some
distress when en route from Liverpool to New York.
Strange character that he was, he made no known attempt to continue his journey to New York. Instead, he remained in Bermuda and died here of apoplexy in 1877 at the age of 57. His abode was where the St. George's branch of the Bank of Bermuda now stands. He began his life in Bermuda as a part-time artist, almost as soon as he arrived. |
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In December, 1861 he ran an advertisement in the Royal Gazette of Bermuda for paintings and sketches he had completed while aboard the ill-fated "Devonshire." He claimed to be a naval architect by training and on the strength of this he applied for and was granted the commission by the Governor of Bermuda of Surveyor General of Lands in 1862 (a post from which he was fired in 1865). But he received no salary or housing for this position. In 1863, he ran other notices in the same newspaper. The unfortunate American Consul Charles Maxwell Allen, who represented the North during the bitter American Civil War and was much-despised during that time in Bermuda, did have one friend. He was this mysterious British artist, with whom Allen shared an office in the mid 1860s. |
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For a while in
1965, as well as a free-lance artist and Surveyor General of Lands, he was
briefly the editor of the newly-formed "Bermuda Chronicle"
after the "Bermuda Advocate" went out of business.
But he incurred the displeasure of Lieutenant-Governor W. G. Hamley for allegedly having public and private sector conflicts of interest despite the fact he was not paid or housed by the Bermuda Government. His writings were construed as political statements often attacking the Governor, forbidden by the position held by James. Nor was he given the commission he wanted to survey and plan the Causeway. James was annoyed when the position was instead given to a British Army officer in the Royal Engineers. |
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He retreated into his private world of
art on a full-time basis in 1865.
It was said publicly that he was an alcoholic. Certainly, he was known to use most of his earnings from the sale of his works to fund his heavy drinking. His American Consul friend and office-sharer commented on this during the American Civil War. Appearing much older than his actual years, James was often seen sketching with a green veil hanging from the back of his hat. It was claimed he was the brother of Shirley Brooks, editor of the British satirical magazine "Punch" (which finally wound down in April, 1992 after 150 years of publication). |
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His paintings
survived and are now acclaimed in Bermuda.
They are now owned mostly by the Bermuda National Trust, Bermuda Historical Society and St. George's Historical Society. Those in their hands have been preserved in environmentally-suitable conditions by and shown by the Bermuda Archives. Some were damaged and had to be restored before showing. His scenes of Southern blockade-runners and other ships are splendid graphics of the late 1800s. He did not focus only on the Town of St. George and its harbor. |
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He also went
to and painted near Hamilton
Harbor, Gibb's Hill Lighthouse, Spittal Pond - the Causeway completed in
1879 - and the Royal Naval Dockyard, then at the height of its
construction by convicts living in prison hulks.
Altogether, since September 21, 2001 and until January 15, 2002, 32 of his paintings large and small, from the two main owners and others too, have been exhibited at the Bermuda National Gallery at City Hall. They are together for the first time since they were painted. |
British, wife and daughter of popular and energetic Governor and historian John Henry Lefroy. In 1999, there was a lovely Bermuda National Trust Christmas card, of two hibiscus flowers as water colors, by Lady Lefroy.
American,
1860 to 1950. Ranked with contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer
as one of the top American watercolorists at the turn of the twentieth century.
Critically acclaimed for his vibrant Fauve-inspired color palette and lively
brushwork. His work, most notably flag-bedecked city street scenes and
landscapes derived from his travels, readily sold out during annual one-man
exhibitions at Boston's Doll & Richards Gallery from 1888 to 1896. His
popularity continued into the 1920s, only waning when he stopped painting
altogether after the deaths of his wife and child in 1931.
Prestigious Boston art patrons of the era such as Isabella Stewart Gardner and
Desmond Fitzgerald were avid collectors of MacKnight's watercolors. Fitzgerald,
an engineer who arranged for the famous 1913 Armory Show to travel to Boston,
displayed 300 MacKnight watercolors alongside Monet, Renoir, and Sargent
paintings in his rambling Brookline, Mass., home. This Bermuda watercolor, of
Lantana, from the flower and property of that name in Somerset, comes from Fitzgerald's collection.
Born in 1903, she died in 2002 at the age of 99.
She kept a studio and was very active in
charitable works, too. Her father, Sam McLaughlin, was one of the founders of
General Motors; his background was in Oshawa, Ontario and the start up business
was McLaughlin-Buick. Before WW1 it was folded into General Motors (GM) of
Canada. (Oshawa remains the major
manufacturing center for GM in Canada). Isobel never
married but holidayed at the family home in Bermuda with her four married
sisters and brought many Canadian
artists to the island to enjoy the visual panoply. Isobel donated C$4,000,000 plus to
a well-known art
gallery in Oshawa, Ontario, the McLaughlin Gallery. It was founded by a relative
of Isabel's and was named after her grandfather, Robert McLaughlin. She was a friend of
all the major Canadian painters of the 20th century. Her family mansion and estate there,
"Parkwood," is a popular tourist site. The name Parkwood has
often been used as a type of a GM luxury car.
Lucius Munson (1796 - 1823)American, from New Haven, Connecticut. Born on December 16, 1796, he studied in New York City in about 1818, returned to New Haven for about a year, then went to Bermuda for his health in 1822 and died in 1823 while on a visit from Bermuda to Turk's Island in the Caribbean. In Bermuda, he painted many persons of note, especially in St. George's. His works were shown in the 1935 Loan Exhibition of Portraits at the Bermuda Historical Society. Shown in the New York Historical Society: Dictionary of American Painters 1564-1860.
Georgia O'Keeffe
(1887-1986)
She completed 12 known works in Bermuda
in 1934, including the much cherished pencil and ink sketch which she titled
"The Banyan
Tree Trunk." This is now valued at more than $75,000. It is now back home in Bermuda where
it belongs, as one of the masterworks paid for and owned by the Bermuda based Masterworks
Foundation. Of the other eleven pieces she rendered in Bermuda, four became the properties
of the O'Keeffe Foundation in New Mexico, one remains in New York's Museum of Modern Art,
and the others are in private collections and various museums in the USA. However, all -
except the one owned by the Museum of Modern Art - were exhibited in Bermuda together for
the first time in 1994.
Georgia O'Keefe's 1934 Bermuda sojourn also inspired her to re-commit herself to the study of plants, the foundation upon which she had matured her style. For example, she sketched how a banana flower emerges to later form fruit. It is this 1934 Bermuda painting of hers that hangs so prominently today in New York's Museum of Modern Art. The curators there say it cannot be exported for Bermudians and visitors to see because such travel would expose to damage the thick charcoal and the pristine and smooth finish of the paper she used. She drew some of her inspiration from the other tenants of her The Parapet, Somerset, Sandys Parish, household, who had invited her to join them there, in her capacity as a fellow artist. They were three young American men, all very successful.
One was Noel Bush, then the editor of Life Magazine. The other two were George Bradshaw, a frequent contributor of short stories to the Saturday Evening Post and David Burnham, then completing a novel. To give her a measure of privacy, they graciously offered her the cottage at the back of The Parapet, which O'Keefe accepted eagerly. She rarely strayed far from that Somerset refuge, as she was so absorbed by the flowers and fruits that she found in the immediate vicinity. But she strayed into other peoples' properties, not deliberately, simply because she had no sense of boundaries. Whenever and wherever she trespassed, her fellow tenants promptly picked up the telephone and made polite apologies.
She was something of an eccentric in other ways. At her bidding, her friends - and their visitors - referred to her as Aunt Georgia. She did not wish to be called Miss O'Keeffe, or her married name, Mrs. Stieglitz, partly because she was conscious she was so much older than her friends. She wore very simple clothes, either black or white, loose fitting, not then in style. Her thick black hair with its signs of gray was drawn back and fastened in a big chignon behind her neck. It set off her strong profile, made all the more prominent as she refused to wear make-up.
But much of her time in Bermuda remains shrouded in mystery, with her other Bermuda inspired works poorly documented. When she left Bermuda in late 1934, she defied her husband and returned to New Mexico every summer. She bought a house there in 1945 and moved there permanently after his death in 1946. As an icon in the American Modernist Movement of art, she died in 1986 at the age of 99. Her art dealer in the USA for more than 30 years was Doris Bray.
A noted German philosopher and writer, she was interned in Bermuda during World War 2. To relieve her boredom, she learnt to paint. An example of her work is in the Bermuda Masterworks collection. Her small framed "Cottage Scene" of the 1950s was on the market in Bermuda in 2003 for $450.
Princess Louise
In 1998,
Bermuda held the first ever exhibition of water colors by Her Royal Highness the Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (born in
1848 and died in 1939 at the age of 91). She was the
fourth daughter and sixth child of the nine born to Queen Victoria (1819 to 1901) and
Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Saxony. Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
(1819 to 1861).
It is not generally known that before she became a prolific and talented artist in paints, she was trained as a sculptor. She could also draw well. She was a beauty who abandoned life at court in favor of a Bohemian existence among artists and sculptors.
It is said she gave birth to an illegitimate child, long considered to have been Henry Locock. He was born in December 1867 and, to cover up a scandal, was adopted by the son of Sir Charles Locock, Queen Victoria's gynecologist.
She lived in a cottage in Surrey, England, and attracted much gossip after marrying in 1871 the Marquis of Lorne from Scotland, heir to and who later became the 9th Duke of Argyle, the premier Highland noble. She was the Marchioness of Lorne, later the Duchess of Argyle. She defied precedent by marrying, for the first time in many generations, outwith the cozy circles of European royalty. The unhappy side to her story is that her husband was a promiscuous homosexual.
It was because of his Royal Appointment as Governor General of Canada - and may also have been because of his philandering - that she was able to visit Bermuda, not just once in 1883 but several times later. She made no secret of the fact that she much preferred the much warmer winter climate of Bermuda to that of Canada. She was Bermuda's first official tourist in 1883. The two big local Princess Hotels are named after her. The first was the Hamilton (or Pembroke) Princess built originally in the late 1880's but modernized since. The real Princess consented to the name because it was built from the publicity she brought Bermuda. In fact, she was present for the grand opening and formally named the hotel. Bermuda also owed her a great debt because more than anyone else she put Bermuda on the map of tourism with her fame and stature. She referred to Bermuda as the "Shangri La" of holiday destinations.
With her appreciation of the military, Guard of Honor it provided for her wedding and the artwork she did for it, one of Scotland's most famous British Army units, The Argyllshire Regiment, was renamed to honor her. It carried her insignia for many years in its own - and served in Bermuda for two years under the old name in the late 1920s before it became The Argyllshire Highlanders and later, the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders. She designed all the badges for her regiment, incorporating the boar of her husband's Clan Campbell and the cat of Sutherland, both regarded in the Scottish Highlands as symbols of superhuman power since pagan times. She linked the two badges with a label of three points from her own armorial bearings, the mark of her cadency as a junior member of the royal family.
Sadly, the battalion that went to Bermuda was credited in the official regimental records in Stirling Castle as having served in Jamaica instead. (Despite our efforts since September 1998 and evidence from other resources as well that the unit was in Bermuda but never in Jamaica, we have not been successful in getting the unit to correct its records).
The leading Canadian organization which owns a number of the watercolors she painted while she was in Bermuda (and lent them to Bermuda for a recent exhibition) is the National Gallery of Canada.
Harold PestanaNot an acknowledged artist himself, he is nevertheless important to the art world of Bermuda for the collection of Bermuda art he contributed to Bermuda, despite being an American visitor. Emeritus Professor at Colby College, Waterville, Maine, he donated his entire Bermuda Art Collection to the Masterworks Foundation, some 31 pieces, plus archival photographs - and even paid the shipping. An art collector, teacher and researcher, he made about 30 visits to Bermuda to the Bermuda Biological Station for Research Inc. over the past 27 years. Among his gifts are paintings by Bermudians Alfred Birdsey, Mary Zuill, Ethel Tucker, early works by Otto Trott, Bruce Stewart and Lisa Quinn.
Ogden Pleissner (1905-1983) |
He made several
visits to Bermuda in the early 1950's. He painted many landscapes in
water color. Influenced by Winslow Homer, Pleissner was able to make
good use of the Bermuda light environment. He expressed his admiration
of the architecture of Bermuda's original settlement, the
Town of St. George. He stayed at "The Jungle" in Tucker's Town, St. George's Parish. He left at least 13 Bermuda images, most of them water colors of the town. See them at Bermuda Masterworks. Today, his fame in the USA rates with those of Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent. |
Edward PotthastOne of the Bermuda-visiting members of the American Water Color Society, formed in 1866.
Frank RehnOne of the Bermuda-visiting members of the American Water Color Society, formed in 1866.
Richard RemingerAmerican, a frequent visitor to Bermuda. His local paintings included "View of St. George's."
Roger SavageHas painted many Bermuda scenes in watercolors. They include Jobson's Cove and Burchall's Cove.
Flag Captain (later Sir)
Michael Seymour Of HMS Vindictive, whose distinctive watercolors included those done in Bermuda when his vessel toured ports of the North America and West Indies Station 1845-1848. They have been on display at the Bermuda Maritime Museum and its Commissioner's House.
In 1999, there was a lovely Bermuda National Trust Christmas card, "Welcoming Smile." by him.
Warren F. SnowAmerican, from Chatham, Cape Cod, MA, he was a well-respected artist and teacher in the 1940s and 1950s. His favorite medium was oil on canvas. He operated a studio at the base of Lighthouse Hill, Southampton, overlooking Waterlot Inn.
Niles SpencerThis artist was in Bermuda in the late 1920's. His "Bermuda 1929" painting was one of the works mentioned by the Philadelphia Enquirer in a review of art in Bermuda by overseas artists.
Robert SteinmetzA modern artist, he maintained a residence in Bermuda. He is the son-in-law of Taber Sears, a well-known New York artist. Recently, four of his works - including one of the Heydon Chapel painted in 1991 - were gifted to the Masterworks Foundation by William and Carol Bailey.
Karl Struss (1886-1981)He was an artist as a photographer, not as a painter. Born in New York in 1886, he was the youngest of six children of Henry Struss, Jr., a clothing manufacturer and mechanical engineer. He became associated with the Photo-Secessionists, founded in 1902 under Alfred Stieglitz who made famous the word "Pictorialism". It stated that via deliberate photographs, not snap shots, photography could and should be regarded as a valid medium of artistic expression, like other fine arts.
James
ToogoodBorn in Philadelphia, PA, he first visited Bermuda in 1982 on honeymoon with his wife Eileen. He is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Over the past 20 years, the couple have visited many times, as artist-in-residence at the Masterworks Foundation at Dockyard.
Adolph
Treidler1886-1981. Most famous for his posters for both World Wars (about 20). He also did a famous long tenure painting for Pierce Arrow. He wrote in Automobile Quarterly, 1976, "My days with Pierce-Arrow spoiled me. Never once during my long association with the company did Pierce-Arrow return one of my paintings for changes or corrections. They were always pleased -- and I of course was delighted." A risky trip to Paris during the Depression led to the French Line account which, in turn, helped him get hired by the Bermuda Board of Trade in the 30s for campaigns and posters that put Bermuda on the tourist map (posters reprinted in the 1990s). He painted covers for most major magazines of the day (Collier's, Century, Scribner's, Woman's Home Companion, Saturday Evening Post, Harper's Weekly).
Some of Treidler's Bermuda works
Don TrousdellAmerican, a long-time Bermuda resident, he is a nature-loving artist of the 20th and 21st centuries. His series of "Rock Boys" at City Hall on August 17, 2001 is a wonderful depiction of the lives of certain convicts sent to Bermuda from the 1830s to build the Dockyard. His other works include "Aviary." He has had several solo exhibitions in Bermuda.
Lieutenant General Gaspard Le Merchant TupperBorn 1826 in Guernsey, Channel Islands, he was one of the most accomplished amateur artists of the 19th century. He enjoyed a long military career including serving heroically in the Crimean War between Britain and Russia. He was posted to Bermuda as a battery commander with the Royal Artillery in 1857. He arrived from England on the convict hulk Norman Morrison and during his year-long stay painted a series of military scenes of Bermuda that are now famous. They are remarkable for their elegant detail, stunning color and excellent preservation. They include landscapes and seascapes of Hamilton , St. George's and the Great Sound. One is called "My Daily Walk" and has a view of St. George's where he was stationed. Tupper later became a Lieutenant General in the British Army.
Ross TurnerA repeat visitor who began his Bermuda visits in 1890, he was an impressionist who regarded Bermuda as a pastel paradise.
E. Ambrose Webster |
A pioneer in the American Modernist movement, he first came to Bermuda in 1913. What attracted him to paint here were the tropical colors, which he translated into his own style. He was captivated by Bermuda's landscapes and nobility of the local black people. Three of his portrait paintings of these Bermudians, completed in the early 1920's, are now part of the Masterworks Foundation of Bermuda collection. One is his "Two Sisters" which was exhibited in New York recently. He studied under Gleizes (see below) from 1918 to 1919. |
As an exhibitor at London's Royal
Academy of Arts, she painted two rare portraits of a boy and girl in Bermuda in the
1870's, a period when only relatively few works relating to Bermuda remain in existence.
She also painted landscapes of Bermuda. Her work has been collected by London's Victoria
and Albert Museum.
English, a Royal Navy officer
earlier and internationally regarded watercolorist. He was in Bermuda in 1929
and 1931 and painted the following scenes, of Admiralty House (since demolished)
and Admiralty
Cove, in those days the Headquarters of the America
& West Indies Squadron (established 1 July, 1927. For the scene painted at
sea on a Royal Navy warship, it was by permission of Vice
Admiral Sir Cyril T. M. Fuller, KCB, CMG, DSO.
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Last Updated: July
3, 2009
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