Museum’s story as inspiring as its art collection
Masterworks in Bermuda has close Canadian connection
HAMILTON — The statue of a moose poking through the bushes outside the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art hints at the ties between the gallery and Canada. But it also speaks of the worldwide vision of Tom Butterfield, Masterworks’ founder and creative director, who has spent the past 25-plus years looking to find and showcase art from and inspired by Bermuda.
What started as a modest collection of 12 works has now turned into a 1,486-squaremetre museum with more than 80,000 artifacts.
Part entrepreneur, part politician, part circus master, Butterfield is above all an enthusiastic spokesman for the arts. And in working for his beloved Masterworks, he is also part detective, hunting down assets for the picturesque gallery built in a renovated former factory in Bermuda’s Botanical Gardens.
“I never know what is around the corner,” said Butterfield, 65. “I always expect the unexpected. In other words, I go looking for the unexpected because I believe that that’s what will happen in life. If you think good things happen in life, they will happen in life, and you will get good results.
“And that is how I have conducted myself. Even at the beginning when there were so many naysayers and there was so much opposition to what we were doing.”
Bermuda’s beauty has long drawn artists from around the world.
In January, Masterworks is uniting a unique, unlikely group of island lovers, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Winslow Homer, Henry Moore, John Lennon and Mark Twain.
O’Keeffe visited Bermuda twice — in 1933 to recuperate from depression, and again in 1934. Homer visited Bermuda regularly beginning in the 1880s. In the summer of 1980, Lennon wrote parts of Double Fantasy in Bermuda — the last album released during his lifetime. And according to Butterfield, Twain loved Ber muda. Moore, meanwhile, was inspired by a gift of shells purchased in Bermuda by a friend who had visited the island.
Shaped liked a fish hook, Bermuda covers just 64 square kilometres in the Atlantic some 1,030 kilometres northeast of the North Carolina coast. Its aquamarine waters, pink sands and marvellous vistas have drawn visitors since Bermuda was discovered in 1505 by Spanish sea captain Juan de Bermudez.
Once marketed mainly to well-heeled tourists, Bermuda is now looking to widen its reach.
And those who make the trip are well-advised to visit
O’Keeffe, Homer, Henry Moore are among artists who enjoyed Bermuda.
Masterworks, a feel-good gallery that will open up its basement to show works not on exhibit if asked.
What was once a temporary exhibit in 1986 is today a stylish museum that boasts 1,500 works of art from the 1700s to present day. The gallery also has more than 80,000 items on or about Bermuda, including photos, postcards and posters
Masterworks is clearly a labour of love for Butterfield, who with his pink glasses and matching shoelaces is as colourful as the island he calls home.
Art and education have taken him around the world.
Butterfield’s Bermudian father met his Canadian mother while attending McGill University. Born in Bermuda, Butterfield was sent to school at St. Andrew’s College in Aurora, Ont., before taking media studies at Ryerson University.
After travelling around Europe, Butterfield turned to photography with a Canada Council grant allowing him to focus on his art in the Maritimes. By the time he returned to Bermuda in 1980, he had added Canadian citizenship to his portfolio and turned to the wine business to help pay the bills.
Masterworks developed out of a 1986 show during Bermuda’s Heritage Month in May, with the acquisition of an original Andrew Wyeth piece on Bermuda turning heads. “A local treasure,” said Butterfield, who dug the Wyeth out of a private collection.
In 1987, he was able to get a 1934 O’Keeffe drawing — Banyan Tree Trunk — on loan for the temporary exhibition.
The collection — whose original 12 works were valued at $55,000 — is now underwritten at $26 million. Colonial Insurance, a major sponsor from the get-go, still charges the gallery $1 a year.
The gallery officially moved into its new home in March 2008.
The museum maintains a relationship with Ryerson via an internship program involving a graduating student from the university’s museum studies department. The Bermudiana Foundation of Canada helps with the internship program and fundraising.
Some 12,000 visitors come through the gallery doors each year, with Butterfield saying TripAdvisor has become one of the museum’s best marketing tools.
Masterworks is an easy bus or cab ride — or scooter trip for the more adventurous — from the capital of Hamilton, and the surrounding gardens are idyllic. After taking in the art, you can relax at Homer’s Café, named after Winslow Homer, for a light meal. There is also a gift shop.
The gallery is open Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., outside of public holidays. Admission is $5 and free for children under 12.