An internationally esteemed art and antiques dealer dedicated to preserving the island’s cultural heritage became a world-known expert on the art of Bermuda and the Caribbean.

Nicholas Lusher followed his intuition and passion for art from an early age, starting out at 6 with coins and stamps.

He was enrolled at age 9 in Sherborne Preparatory School in the Dorset town of the same name, where ten antique shops served a population of 10,000 — enabling him to sell enough items between establishments to turn a profit and buy sweets.

In a 1993 interview with the Mid-Ocean News, Mr Lusher recalled spotting a porcelain item for sale in a shop in Bournemouth when he was 13, and suspecting it was worth well over the asking price.

“I made £13 on that piece of antique porcelain, which was quite a lot of money then,” he said. “I had an instinctive interest in the field of art and antiques and an inner response to it. I always frequented antique shops and devoured any opportunity to do so.”

At 14, when he had graduated into the Sherborne Senior School, he was summoned to the headmaster’s office, where he was asked to account for the First World War-era tobacco jar that had been found in his locker.

The young Mr Lusher said it had been consigned to him, describing a plan for its resale at a profit that was confirmed after a phone call to an antiques dealer.

An interest in early Bermuda photographs could be traced to his great-grandfather, Nicholas E. Lusher, the island’s first commercial photographer from the 1880s.

His works were among the few items Mr Lusher did not sell on. His career took off after he left Sherborne at 19 to study visual arts through the training programme at what became Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London.

Mr Lusher travelled often to New York City and Bermuda, selling on items of interest acquired in London. He would return to Sotheby’s in 1989 to refresh his knowledge of the arts and the market.

As his connections grew, he turned his business towards paying off some of his tuition at King’s College in the University of London, where he began in 1982, completing a bachelor's degree in history.

Mr Lusher returned to Bermuda in 1985, spending more time on the island than off it for the first time in 13 years, and began to delve more into Bermuda-related artworks.

He opened two galleries on the island and served as a trustee at the Bermuda National Gallery, where he curated and lectured.

He was also trustee at the Bermuda Society of Arts.

Mr Lusher compared buying art to dealing with fine wines, telling the Mid-Ocean: “If you don't have a thorough knowledge of the field, you get to know a dealer or merchant who can advise you — and in a small place like Bermuda, the service the dealer provides must be built on quality and fair prices.

“An art dealer, like a wine merchant, wants to maintain his list of clients.”

He spent much of his time networking by phone to track down material in North America and Europe.

“There is no short cut to knowing what to buy,” Mr Lusher said. “It comes more easily with the investment of time and money over many years.”

In 1988, he met his future bride, Jamie Flon, and the two married a year later. They had a son, Ben, and a daughter, Chloe.

In recent years the couple lived in New York City and ran the Lusher Gallery, internationally recognised for specialising in the fine art of Bermuda and the Caribbean.

Mr Lusher’s fascination with maps led him to curate an exhibition of antique Bermuda maps at the Bermuda National Gallery, and he contributed to and published the book The Mapping of Bermuda.

In 1986 when Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, married Prince Andrew, the Bermuda Government approached Mr Lusher for help finding an appropriate gift.

Mr Lusher prided himself in his involvement in almost every major sale of Bermuda works by the American impressionist and modernist Reynolds Beal.

He produced the island’s first exhibition of the American photographer and Academy Award-winning cinematographer Karl Struss’s platinum-print photographs of Bermuda.

He sold several works by Norman Lewis, an African-American painter of Bermudian descent.

Mr Lusher played a key role in a major posthumous acquisition of historical Bermuda paintings that stand at the core segment of the Bermuda National Gallery’s permanent collection.

According to his family, it was likely that creations from “nearly every important artist who worked the Bermuda landscape passed through his hands”, and he could identify an artist and their setting at a glance.

He was devoted to the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art as well as the BNG, calling them “pillars” of the island’s cultural heritage.

“In a sense, I try to do a similar thing by making art available to the individual, by offering him or her the opportunity to own a piece of early Bermuda art work,” he said.

“I feel that we should, as Bermudians young and old, be proud of the inspiration that Bermuda has provided for some truly great artists, and some lesser-known artists as well.”

His family said: “As passionate as Nicholas was about art, his devotion and love for his family formed the core of his emotional and spiritual existence, and was the true blessing of his life.

“It is his family’s fervent hope that all those who were touched by his kindness and compassion send out into the world a bit of the light Nicholas shone on everyone who entered his orbit.”

A funeral service for Mr Lusher will be held tomorrow at St John’s Church in Pembroke.

Nicholas Crosson Lusher, a top Bermudian art historian and dealer in art and antiquities, was born on November 30, 1962. He died on December 26, 2024, aged 62