WILLIAMSBURG, Va., July 23, 2009 – Tom Butterfield, founding and creative director of the Masterworks Foundation and Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art, will speak on “Somewhere Beyond the Sea: Art, Artists, and Bermuda” at 7 p.m., Saturday, August 8, at Jamestown Settlement’s Robins Foundation Theater. The presentation is the last in a series of four public lectures related to the museum’s current “Jamestown and Bermuda: Virginia Company Colonies” special exhibition examining the shared history and links between England’s first two permanent colonies in the New World.
Butterfield will explain why artists like Winslow Homer and Georgia O’Keeffe have been drawn to Bermuda, illustrating his talk with examples from the Masterworks collection, ranging from an 18th-century watercolor to contemporary works. Butterfield’s quest to identify and recognize Bermudian artists – famous as well as lesser known – led to the creation of the Masterworks Foundation in 1987 and the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art, which loaned more than a dozen artworks for the “Jamestown and Bermuda” exhibition at Jamestown Settlement.
“Jamestown and Bermuda: Virginia Company Colonies,” which continues through October 15, will be open to lecture attendees from 6 to 6:45 p.m. on August 8 and, following the presentation, until 8:30 p.m.
Advance reservations are required for the free evening lecture and can be made at (757) 253-4415 or rsvp.lecture@jyf.virginia.gov.
The “Jamestown and Bermuda: Virginia Company Colonies” lecture series is sponsored by the Dominion Foundation. Previous speakers were Lucinda Spurling on “The Lion and the Mouse … the Story of America and Bermuda,” April 25; Lorri Glover on “The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America,” June 13; and Michael Jarvis on “Sister Colonies: Virginia, Bermuda, and the Beginnings of English America,” July 11.
Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (until 6 p.m. through August 15) daily, Jamestown Settlement is located on State Route 31 just southwest of Williamsburg, adjacent to Historic Jamestowne. For more information about the museum, visit www.historyisfun.org or call (888) 593-4682 toll-free or (757) 253-4838.
