An American artist whose versatility as painter, printmaker and sculptor placed her at the forefront of New York post-modernism, should provide an unusual focus for the Bermuda National Gallery's latest exhibition.

Opening this week, `Nancy Graves: 20 Years of Prints and Sculptures' combines prints from the American Federation of Arts' travelling exhibition together with sculpture loaned from private collections.

"The exhibitions committee had decided it was time to do something contemporary and we felt that while her work is basically abstract, it is also very accessible,'' explains gallery director Laura Gorham.

The occasion is something of a bittersweet event for Mrs. Gorham who, as an assistant at the Knoedler Gallery in New York, had worked for the artist for about four years. "Her death three years ago (at the age of only 55) was a terrible shock,'' admits Mrs. Gorham. "She had always promised that she would come here and do a lecture for us. When we exhibited a couple of her pieces in one of our early shows, I sent her pictures and she was very pleased. She told me that, quite a few years earlier, she had visited Bermuda on holiday.'' Describing the artist as a person who was as demanding of herself as she was of other people, Mrs. Gorham adds, "She really cared about people and took none of the staff at the gallery for granted. I received a very nice letter from her husband when she died.'' She is especially pleased that the exhibition has been curated by Thomas Padon, director of exhibitions at the American Federation of Arts. "He is an ex-Guggenheim curator and will be doing our docent training and giving lectures. We have also worked closely with Knoedler and the Graves Foundation to bring this show together.'' Viewers may be pleasantly surprised by Nancy Graves' brilliantly painted sculptures, many of which incorporate dramatic use of found objects and glass, as well as specimens of plants, animal and marine life. Many of these have been cast directly into bronze from wax molds. The effect can be visually arresting, as in her recurring motifs of decorative fans, ferns and palms, or even pleated lampshades and discarded plumbing fixtures.

Graves' wideness of appeal is perhaps entrenched in her childhood roots. As the daughter of an official at a small Massachusetts museum, she was early exposed to an openness that granted art, science and history equal eminence: she would watch curators as they classified wonders from the scientific world and she developed as much respect for the craftsman who created models and dioramas as for the artist who worked in oil paints or clay.

Educated at Vassar and Yale's School of Art and Architecture, Nancy Graves also studied in Paris, Florence and Rome where she developed a knowledge and appreciation of mythology and classical art which would find expression in much of her future work. Her early passion for the sciences also informed much of her subsequent artistic output, beginning with her now famous and life-like camel sculptures (at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa) and progressing to her lithographs based on moon maps and the ocean floor.

Graves who died three years ago at the age of only 55, created an unusually wide range of imagery, using a variety of techniques in her often very large prints -- whether it was in the form of lithograph, etching, screenprint or monoprint: to the very end of her life, she was constantly experimenting and breaking down traditional boundaries between existing media, often overlapping the role of sculptor and printmaker.

Mrs. Gorham is confident that this one-woman show will provide valuable educational opportunities for the Island's schools. Not only, she feels, will it appeal to art teachers but should also open up horizons on other fronts, including science, history, geography, and environmental issues. Graves' often inspired use of language, typified in the titles of some of her works (`Whiffle Tree', `Pendelance', `Iconostasis', to name but a few) should also appeal to students of English.

`Nancy Graves: 20 Years of Prints and Sculptures' runs at the Bermuda National Gallery from September 26 through January 9, 1999.

An Illustrated Lecture on the work of Nancy Graves will form today's lunchtime event at the Gallery (beginning at 12.30 p.m.). This will be given by Thomas Padon, curator of the exhibition and director of exhibitions of the American Federation of Arts.

`FOLIAR'` -- One of the bronze sculptures in the Bermuda National Gallery's exhibition `Nancy Graves: 20 Years of Prints and Sculptures', which opens this week.