Bermuda has been thrust into the Canadian media spotlight in the last week as an Island art show sweeps Toronto, but the potential tourism spin-offs offered by this coverage are not being fully taken advantage of, according to the show's director.

Masterworks' travelling show has drawn mentions in Canada's national newspaper The Globe and Mail, major urban dailies The Toronto Star and The Ottawa Citizen and on CBC Radio's Andy Barrie show.

The exhibition features works inspired by Bermuda or painted in Bermuda by well-known artists including Georgia O'Keeffe and Winslow Homer. Also on exhibition is memorabilia on the tourism relationship between Canada and Bermuda.

And in stark contrast to media coverage of the Rebecca Middleton murder case and the controversy surrounding the appointment of Saul Froomkin as Canadian Honorary Consul, the press coverage this time around is glowingly positive.

The travelling exhibition opened last Thursday in the University of Toronto's Arts Centre and both attendance and feedback have been fantastic.

"It's great exposure for the Island,'' said Masterworks director Tom Butterfield.

"I was told by the curator that visitorship has never been better,'' he said.

Between 800 and 850 people turned out on the first night to see the show opened by Tourism Minister David Allen. But Mr. Butterfield is hoping that the Tourism Ministry will increase its support for the show as it travels on, especially given the media success it has drawn in Toronto.

"Tourism did give us a little support -- but not that much,'' he said. "They wanted to help with the opening.'' And given the opportunity the media attention to the show provides to promote Bermuda, Mr. Butterfield was a little surprised Tourism officials haven't completely capitalised on it.

"It's pretty major to get in the art section, the travel section and a critical review in The Globe and Mail,'' he said. "And Andy Barrie really gave the pump.'' A promo ran on the front page of Wednesday's Globe and Mail featuring a picture of a painting by well-known Canadian artist Jack Bush pointing readers to a half page photo of the painting `House and Figure' in the travel section.

But while the lead travel story starts out about the Bermuda show, it then moves on to discuss possible art-focused vacations in places such as Mexico, India and Nepal with sample package prices, but, does not include Bermuda.

A side bar to the story also mentions painting vacations offered in Cape Cod, Provence and Tuscany -- but there is no mention of Bermuda.

And there is no Bermuda Tourism advertisement in the travel section, although there is one in the stocks section.

"When we go on to the next stop, I'm hoping the Tourism Department will come forth with support for this undertaking,'' said Mr. Butterfield.

"This is giving Bermuda tremendous exposure and it gives Bermudians a real reason to feel proud of what is possible and what people will see and say about our Island. It's a great opportunity,'' he said.

For example, Paterson Ewan one of the Canadian artists featured in the show said to the Globe and Mail of the work he does in Bermuda when he visits with his wife: "We'd just go for a week or two and I always did these little things for fun. I was surprised how nice they were because they weren't supposed to be. They show the lighter side of me.'' And of Bermuda, which he has been visiting to relax and paint his small watercolours since the 1980s: "It couldn't be more different than Canada.

It's heavenly with colour.'' In August the show will leave Toronto and move to the Owens Gallery in Sackville, New Brunswick. After New Brunswick, Mr. Butterfield hopes to move the show on to Boston and it is here that he hopes the Tourism department will finally seize the potential offered by the show.

"Because we now recognise the potential of the show -- we weren't sure before it was just a trial balloon we floated in Philadelphia and New York, but Boston is a key place, a natural fit,'' he said, given its tradition as a tourism target market.

Mr. Butterfield is confident that the show will draw further support from Tourism however. "If we present a reasonable enough package (to Tourism), it should be supported,'' he said. "Given the press coverage we've had, it should make us all realise the enormous potential that exists for the island.

"Many of the pictures in the collection are not the work of great painters, but they too reflect the halcyon feeling apparently induced in any artist who ever set foot on this Caribbean (sic) island,'' said one art reviewer in the Toronto Star.

Tom Butterfield