‘Treasure Island’ is the new summer blockbuster exhibition at Masterworks. It does everything to enhance its reputation as a world-class museum through the key role Bermuda has played as muse to artists of world renown.

The walls are freshly painted in a terracotta pink which lends a gravitas reminiscent of the walls of the Royal Academy. The artists’ names are printed on the wall above the paintings. Winslow Homer, Georgia O’Keefe, Albert Gleizes, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, Ogden Pleissner and Henry Moore were inspired by Bermuda and are all represented in the side wing of the Museum.

The newly acquired limited edition print portrait by Yousuf Karsh of Georgia O’Keefe is striking. It adds to O’Keefe’s mystique. Her down-turned head and gaze eludes the intrusion of the camera. She is captured with the subtle lighting and monochrome tonalities that Karsh is famous. O’Keefe — seated and clothed in black — has the motifs from her life’s work by her: an antlered animal skull hangs way above her head while the organic form of a tree trunk is by her side. A strong diagonal shaft of sunlight across an open door hints at the New Mexico landscape beyond that she adored so much. This strong composition has her body positioned like the number four. She has such poise as her hands drape loosely from her lap. What hands they are too — large — yet strangely elegant.

Beside the Karsh portrait hangs the graphite sketch, Banyan Tree Trunk, O’Keefe made during her stay on the Island following illness in 1934. Although this work is more representational than some of her flower paintings, it still expresses the abstract. You sense a tension and energy in the tree’s form that reaches beyond the inanimate. Her preoccupation, intended or not, for the anthropomorphic and female anatomy is evident.

What adds to the engaging narrative of ‘Treasure Island’ is how the works are often accompanied by a smaller piece that show the artists’ nascent thoughts.

For instance in George Ault’s small graphite sketch, line and form are plotted — his visual language — for the painting to follow. Likewise, the genesis of Jack Bush’s bold, stylised painting of saturated colour, Home and Figure, St George’s, is seen in his earlier watercolour miniature. Donald Kirkpatrick’s etching, Two Men in a Boat, formed the basis for an almost identical painting.

The three iconic paintings by Winslow Homer in the collection hang side by side with pride of place and are rarely, if ever, shown together. It is interesting to note that he considered his work in Bermuda among his best.

The key works in the collection by Albert Gleizes, who was a leader within the Cubist movement, are the large oil portrait and two smaller gouache paintings — all painted in 1917. They are examples of the movement that profoundly shifted the pivot of twentieth century art. The rhythmic portrait of a woman in muted green-browns and ochres creates a fractured visual experience, liberated from a fixed viewpoint. To see Cubist art here in Bermuda — painted of Bermuda — is a valuable opportunity. Charles Demuth paints the unique geometry of Bermuda’s vernacular architecture that lends itself so well to the movement.

By way of contrast to the Gleizes is a portrait of the same scale and painted around the same time by George Biddle, is impressionist in style.

From Cubism and Modernism and the contemporary Hyperrealist Turner Prize winning artist Malcolm Morley to the abstract Jennifer Bartlett; the range is remarkable. ‘Treasure Island’ is deftly complimented with sculpture. There is a dynamic Desmond Fountain bronze together with an amusing piece by Edwina Sandys. The three Henry Moore sketches on display, done towards the end of his life, still show the sculptor’s hand in his exploration of the organic form of shells.

Literature too is represented by a Mark Twain first edition which was found to contain a handwritten note by the author whose fond affection for the Island did much to popularise Bermuda during his numerous stays.

Bermuda is the enduring artists’ muse and this exhibition of exemplary standard forms a remarkable treasury of human experience. Masterworks has a distinct curatorial pedigree for original and inventive exhibitions with artists to match. Their maxim is to “See, Learn, Enrich”. There can be no doubt that you leave this exhibition richer. If you make just one show this year, visit ‘Treasure Island’.

(‘Treasure Island’ at Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art runs until August 11)