Lady Waddington and Lady Swan chose just 16 from among some 300 and visitors to the show agree that they have come up with a "classic'' selection. It includes what Masterworks spokeswoman Mrs. Elise Outerbridge describes as "the masterpieces of Masterworks'', such as the Winslow Homer painting and the Georgia O'Keeffe drawing.

She points out, "They are both very knowledgeable about our collection and have worked with us before. And they both have such good architectural taste, which is reflected in many of the pictures of old Bermuda buildings. Lady Waddington selected some of our works for Government House and Lady Swan always uses Masterworks pieces for Camden House.'' They are now both on the board of Masterworks.

Says Lady Waddington, "I think it's a lovely charity and a very worthwhile thing to be bringing this material back to Bermuda. I was very happy to invite Masterworks to place some of their pieces in Government House. I just joined Lady Swan on the Board so it was rather nice to be involved together -- we are great friends.'' Lady Swan agrees. "We had great fun, making the selections,'' she says. "We wanted the show to be representative of the whole collection, so having chosen the Homer and the O'Keeffe, we made a point of choosing things that were really pleasing to us.'' She emphasises, too, that they were anxious to include some examples of modern Bermuda paintings. Their choice in that department was Sharon Wilson's The Fishermen and Steven Masters' Old Lime Kiln.

"We also worked very closely with Elise, to see how she wanted them hung in the gallery,'' she adds.

On a personal basis, says Lady Swan, "I really like the Kirkpatricks, the Albert Gleizes and Sharon's and Steven's work. But every piece we selected were things that we really do admire. Funnily enough, we both seemed to like the same paintings!'' Says Lady Waddington, "There wasn't a lot of room available, but I think that the pieces we agreed on almost chose themselves -- such as the Homer and the O'Keeffe, and then it was really a question of trying to get all the disciplines that they have, such as oils, watercolour, pencil, and the pastel by Sharon Wilson and the two etchings by Kirpatrick. It's quite surprising to realise that they already have so many disciplines.'' She says that having chosen what they considered to be four or five of the most important works in the collection, they then went after the pieces which they felt were "special'' in some way: "But all Bermuda pictures complement each other so well.'' Asked how they set about choosing such a small number from so large a collection, Lady Waddington says that Masterworks got all the pictures from their headquarters off Front Street to the National Gallery: "Then the girls held them up for us to have a good look.'' The two ladies were also entrusted with deciding where the various pictures would hang -- one of the most important factors in staging an art exhibition.

"We were really guided by the two main pictures, which were in obviously prominent positions and we just fitted in the rest according to size and content,'' says Lady Waddington.

Lady Swan says she is especially grateful to Masterworks for allowing her to borrow pictures from their collection to hang at Camden.

"They have been very good to us and have let us have their oils, rather than watercolours, which tend to be a bit frail. We have always tried to have some of our Bermudian artists represented there, people like the Tucker sisters, and John Kaufmann. But we thought it would also be nice to have some of the pictures that visiting artists were painting of Bermuda in the late 1900s and early 20th century. We have two lovely Ambrose Websters at Camden, so we chose his painting of Ely's Harbour for the show.'' For Lady Waddington, who studied art at Brighton College of Art, her involvement with Masterworks is about to increase.

"According to Mr. Tom Butterfield, one of my works will be on show at their City Hall show in June. I did a picture of the Tucker sisters' tea-house which is now the Butterfields' summer house on Tucker's Island. It's the first picture that I've actually finished in 35 years!'' she says.

THE LADIES' CHOICE -- Lady Waddington (left) and Lady Swan are pictured at the National Gallery where they selected works to be shown in the current Masterworks Collection exhibition. They are seen holding American artist, Donald Kirkpatrick's lithograph of Day Shadow Tree.