Please click on the link above to download "Somewhere Beyond the Sea: Highlights from the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art Collection", a catalogue of the Bermudiana Collection featured at the opening of the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art on March 1, 2008.

Over the past 150 years many artists sailed to Bermuda to escape harsh northern winters.  What they found inspired them to put art mediums to surfaces.  When they left, they took their work with them.  The Masterworks Foundation, since its formation in 1987, has re-patriated and collected over 1,200 paintings, drawings, photographs, and more by well-known artists from America, Canada, United Kingdom, France, and many more locations.  Just as these artists were inspired by Bermuda, we too draw inspiration by their vision to see Bermuda with a fresh eye. 

The mission of the Masterworks Foundation was to house and exhibit this growing Bermudiana Collection for the enjoyment and education of all - our residents, our visitors, and importantly our children.  In 2008, the only purpose-built museum in Bermuda opened, providing this irreplaceable cultural and historical treasure a permanent showcase and home. 

The Bermudiana Collection belongs to the people of Bermuda and can be found at the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art in the Botanical Gardens, at Camden House, the official residence of the Premier, in the Botanical Gardens, as well as the Colonial Insurance building foyer on Reid Street in Hamilton city. 

Over the past 23 years, the Bermudiana Collection has grown to more than 1,200 works, encompassing most mediums of visual art including oil paintings, watercolours, drawings, etchings, lithographs, photographs, sculpture, memorabilia, collectables, furniture, and more.  Now that the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art is open, the ambitious undertaking of caring for and adding to the Bermudiana Collection and hosting world-class exhibitions from it, continues to grow and maintain Bermuda's culture, heritage, and its artistic legacy.

In 1998 the Museum Association of Britain drafted the following statement:
Museums enable people to explore collections for inspiration, learning and enjoyment.  They are the institutions that collect, safeguard, and make accessible artefacts and specimens that they hold in trust for society.

Art galleries share a similar responsibility since they hold in trust collections of art.  Masterworks, both museum and art gallery, is therefore committed to enabling collection, preservation, interpretation and study.  It is therefore the responsibility of the directors, staff and volunteers at Masterworks to share the museum’s value with our community, champion its causes, and ensure it helps us to extend our knowledge of ourselves.  To see is to learn and to enrich.

With the support of our members, donors and the corporate community, the Bermudiana Collection continues to grow offering Bermudians and visitors the rare opportunity to experience works by Winslow Homer, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, Jack Bush, Albert Gleizes, Malcolm Morley, Ogden Pleissner, Cole Weston, and many more international and Bermudian artists.