James Morrice, one of the great Canadian painters, delivered the ultimate clarion call to all artists of North America when he said: “. . . a painter should go south. It cleanses the palette.” Painters in Paradise is the answer to Morrice’s call. It presents paintings by artists of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries who made their way to Bermuda and islands to the south of Bermuda from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, France, and elsewhere.
The exhibition is a revelation of the way that Bermuda’s subtropical climate, her pastel coloured architecture, coral sands and brilliant blue seas have inspired, and still inspire, local and visiting artists alike. The general art lover will find a world of warmth and colour in these pictures. Other visitors will discover with surprise the well known and significant artists who have painted in Bermuda, from Winslow Homer at the beginning of the 20th century to the American modernists Charles Demuth and Marsden Hartley, from Georgia O’Keefe to Jack Bush, from British painter Vivien John in 1939 to abstract painter Jennifer Bartlett (American but trained in England), and right at the millennium the very first winner of the Turner Prize, Malcolm Morley.Painters in Paradise is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with a foreword by the Masterworks Foundation’s patron HRH The Prince of Wales.
