An exhibition of works by British-born artist and sculptor Edwina Sandys is expected to generate great interest when it opens on Friday at City Hall under the auspices of the Masterworks Foundation.

"There has been a lot of discussion recently about public access to art, and as Edwina is world-renowned for her sculptures, we saw this as an opportune moment to be included,'' said a delighted Mrs. Elise Outerbridge, assistant to the director of Masterworks.

"She recently had her Tulip sculpture on the meridian of Park Avenue and 53rd Street, which gave it exposure to hundreds of thousands of travellers daily.

With a somewhat smaller population than New York City we are hoping to achieve the same results in proportion.'' The exhibition is undoubtedly a major coup for Bermuda, since Ms Sandys' sculptures are found in some of the world's most prestigious locations, including various headquarters of the United Nations, and the Windsor Sculpture Gardens in Ontario, Canada.

Her 15-foot, laminated glass sculpture, The Branches of Promise, commissioned by the Monsanto Company of St. Louis, Missouri, is the largest of its kind in the world.

Ms Sandys is also creating Millennium Circle, a global art project for the Third Millennium, to be installed on each continent.

Arguably her most famous sculpture, however, the 11-foot high, 32-foot long Breakthrough, comprised of eight sections of the Berlin Wall, with the figures of a man and woman cut into it to symbolise the passage to freedom.

The sculpture is now set in the grounds of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri near Franta Belsky's statue of Ms Sandys' famous grandfather, Sir Winston Churchill. It was at Westminster College in 1946 that Churchill coined the phrase "the Iron Curtain''.

Ms Sandys' diverse subject matter, ranging from the light-hearted to the profound, has led critics to compare her sculptures and paintings to those of Matisse and Toulouse-Lautrec.

Earlier this year, Ms Sandys indicated she had "various thoughts and dreams'' about an sculpture she would like to create specifically for Bermuda.

"I would like to do something for the people of Bermuda, and ideally I would like it to be in Sandys,'' she said, noting that the parish was named after her ancestor, Sir Edwin Sandys.

Ms Sandys, daughter of Britain's former Minister of State for the Commonwealth & Colonies, Sir Duncan Sandys, is married to well-known architect Richard Kaplan, and lives in New York. Interestingly, it was Sir Duncan who donated the painting of Sir Edwin Sandys which now hangs in the Cabinet Office.

The exhibition, which Ms Sandys describes as comprising "sculptures, frolics, and yin-yangs'', opens in the Bermuda Society of Arts Gallery in City Hall on Friday, August 13, and will run until August 30. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Saturday. Admission is free.

Full circle: This sculpture is part of Edwina Sandys' global art project to create a permanent link in time and place between continents for the Third Millennium. Entitled Millennium Circle , it is being created in materials appropriate to the physical and cultural climate of each continent on which it will be installed.

Hands of Sandys: Edwina Sandys shows off a pair of her sculptures, which are in the private collection of a Bermuda resident.