Twenty years ago Masterworks had no permanent home and 12 paintings to its name. Back then, it wasn't thought of as an official collection, but rather a group of paintings bought from American dealer Scott Schutz which were hung wherever space was found, and which were often moved around after dark to fulfil someone's request to borrow paintings for an exhibit.

To this modest nucleus other works were quickly added – a little sketch here, a photograph there – on an ad hoc basis, mainly to try and get the vision of a permanent art collection of Bermuda-related works off the ground.

Just how far that distant vision has come will be revealed tonight when invited guests and dignitaries from here and abroad join Masterworks Foundation director Tom Butterfield, curator Elise Outerbridge (pictured), the fine board of directors and staffers and 50 volunteers in celebrating the official opening of the brand new, purpose-built Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art in the Botanical Gardens.

For many, it will be the first time they have seen some of the items in the inaugural exhibition, which includes art by such renowned artists as Homer, Pleisner, Senat, O'Keefe, Gleizes and others. For the past eight years, the Collection has been on tour in North America and the UK, biding its time until its permanent home was ready. Now, the works are all together for the first time in Bermuda, and will be exhibited on regular rotation.

Looking around the new, split-level gallery, with its dramatic, curving staircase, gleaming wooden floors, soaring white walls and special lighting, a clearly delighted Mr. Butterfield said, "I have to pinch myself that we have managed not just to survive for 20 years without a home but actually flourish."

Indeed, 'flourish' is the operative word, for today the Foundation's collection has not only grown tremendously in size – to 1,200 works – and value, but also reflects acquisitions which have been chosen judiciously.

"When we started out people would look at the Collection and sniff, 'These are tertiary artists', but we made it our duty to research the artists we brought into the Collection. Today, people like Thomas Anschutz, Prosper Senat and Ogden Pleisner have become familiar to Bermudians as people who portrayed their environment," Mrs. Outerbridge said. "We have been given a lot of paintings, but we have been very careful about our purchases. Because our focus is on 'Inspired by Bermuda', we have been able to build up the Collection on that basis. Today, we represent many different styles and media, all of which go back to that core focus which gives the Collection its thread of continuity."

In terms of growth, perhaps the best measurement is to realise that when the Collection went abroad on tour for eight years it was shipped into eight crates. The return journey required 25.

Tracing the history of some of the Foundation's purchases, Mr. Butterfield (pictured) recalled that acquisition of the original 12 works opened what he termed the combination of a Pandora's box and an Aladdin's cave. The former because the Foundation had to borrow money and then figure out a way of paying it back; the latter because of the speed with which more works were surfacing.

"We stumbled on a treasure trove of Bermuda subject matter, but even then we never fully realised what was in front of us. In the first couple of months we felt it would be a project which would have a finite life and we might turn what we had collected over to another organisation," he said. "From 1987-89 we were on the edge of doubt all the time about the extent of the project, but works kept coming up, so we were being driven by its own energy as something you couldn't put the brakes on."

The acquisition on permanent loan in 1992 of its first Winslow Homer – 'Inland Water' – was a defining moment in the Foundation's life and credibility, and set the seal on future purchases of works by other eminent artists.

Over the years, financing for purchases has come through fundraisers, gifts, generous benefactors and bequests. Three portraits by Ambrose Webster were paid for from the proceeds of a telethon which raised $50,000 in two and one half hours, while Maine artist Stephen Etnier's 'From the New Windsor Hotel' was purchased with funds willed to the Foundation by the late Margaret Staskow. Mr. Butterfield's fundraising run in the 1989 London (England) marathon yielded the Jack Bush watercolour, 'House and Figure, St. George's'. The Christian Humann Foundation is also among those who have generously assisted financially over the years.

For the inaugural exhibition, Mr. Butterfield borrowed the song title, 'Somewhere Beyond the Sea', which Mrs. Outerbridge then took as her reference point in choosing which works from the Collection to display.

"We have tried to be representative of all the aspects, and we have concentrated on the 1917 Alfred Stieglitz 'circle' of painters who came here. That is probably the most academic part of our Collection: synthetic Cubism which was introduced by Albert Gleizes to the American painters Hartley and Demuth, who were also here," the curator said.

"With regard to the Homers, we are lucky to have three of the 21 known Bermuda watercolours that he did, and which we feel introduced the artist to Bermuda, as a subject, from the PanAm exposition in Buffalo, New York in 1902."

With the cadence of the 'Beyond the Sea' lyrics as a starting point, the viewer is first introduced to two works by George Ault. Progressing around the gallery, the 'tour' includes beach scenes, Hamilton, landscapes, and early paintings. Two paintings of the SS Trinidad, one by Frederic Anderson and gifted by Bermuda residents Doug and Lee Backeberg, and the other by Homer, are linked symbolically as the means by which these and other artists travelled and from the Island.

Another grouping pays homage to photography, a medium which was really important in transporting Bermuda images overseas decades ago.

Here the viewer will find work by Karl Struss, Marjorie Content and John Pfahl.

Two striking works by well-known British artist Malcolm Morley, who will be among the many overseas visitors attending tonight's opening, and two by American artist Jennifer Bartlett, are representative of the contemporary works in the Foundation's collection.

Andrew Wyeth's 1952 painting, 'Royal Palms', one of three known works by the artist, has again been loaned by a private collector for a two-month showing in this exhibition.

Viewed in total, Mr. Butterfield said the inaugural exhibition answered three fundamental issues of how it all began: Homer's visit to the Island; the creation of Masterworks in 1987; and what transported the artists here from 1885.

Ascending the sweeping staircase to the upper level, which is known as the Bank of Bermuda Foundation Mezzanine, the eye is led to the late 1940s oil painting, 'Elliot Street' by Canadian artist Dorothy Stevens, which includes children playing in what was then known as Parker's Hill, and is today the site of Gosling's warehouse and parking lot on Dundonald Street. Adjacent to the painting is a grouping of black and white photographs of those same children as adults. This display is accompanied by Lucinda Spurling's video in which former residents of the area reminisce about those early days.

On another wall is found a charming grouping of cedar-framed watercolours painted by the Ethel and Catherine Tucker. These hang above a splendid onion-footed Bermuda cedar chest donated to the Museum in memory of Mr. Butterfield's late aunt, Lady Tibbits, by her daughters. A beautifully renovated bench, formerly used by doctors' patients in the Russell Eve Building, completes the Bermuda cedar theme.

Summing up the two-decade-old evolution of Masterworks that has brought it to today's high point, Mr. Butterfield said, "We started off with 12 paintings just like the 12 disciples, and like the feeding of thousands, we have multiplied to the point where we now have a collection of 1,200 works of art and a wonderful new Museum of Bermuda Art. There is no doubt we were lucky. It is a mix of hard work, a little bit of persistence, some tenacity and stubbornness."

Gay Hackett, a member of the Bermuda Artworks Foundation in the US, pronounced the new venue and the collection of paintings "truly magnificent".

Also enjoying an extended sneak preview of the main gallery was US visitor Lois Gilbert, who first came to the Island on honeymoon in 1941.

Noting that the majority of the Collection depicted a bygone Bermuda, she said the art created a connection which made people return again and again.

"These paintings certainly depict that part of Bermuda which is so enchanting and they are absolutely wonderful. My first impression is that it is amazing to think Masterworks has been able to stick with it and get this wonderful collection together. To me, the perseverance tells the story of Bermuda."