Back in 1997, I was in the Azores to help negotiate an Azorean art exhibition for the Bermuda National Gallery. Its planned 1999 exhibit was to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first arrival of Azorean settlers in Bermuda in 1849.

While there in Sao Miguel, I met up with an Azorean-Bermudian who told me that the Azorean art community was highly fractured and that the various groups were not on the best of speaking terms. My response was that it reminded me somewhat of the Bermuda art community.

The Bermuda art community has a history of division. Indeed, the Bermuda Society of Arts broke away from the Bermuda Art Association over some dispute in about 1952.

When BSoA was established, one of its stated ambitions was the establishment of a museum of art for Bermuda. Seeing that it then did not even have a permanent place for membership exhibitions, that goal was ambitious indeed.

When the Bermuda National Gallery finally opened to the public in1992, it was under the auspices of all the island’s cultural organisations, including BSoA. Every effort was made to avoid disputes, nevertheless opposition developed from several quarters, including BSoA and in 1994, it began to collect art, emulating the purpose of the BNG.

Without getting into detail, all this negativity that once existed in the various island arts organisations now seems to have abated. Negatives have become positives and now we have not one art museum, but several organisations that showcase art from varying perspectives.

The Bermuda art community has never been quite as healthy as it seems today. We currently have three museums that showcase art, including the National Museum of Bermuda, Masterworks, the BNG and even the two island historical society museums. The arts are thriving in the schools, including the art programme at Bermuda College and the Kaleidoscope Arts Foundation. Then there is the BSoA and the Bermuda Art Centre at Dockyard.

Last month, BSoA was exhibiting 27 artworks from its permanent collection including works by Charles Lloyd Tucker, Kok Wan Lee, Elizabeth A Trott, Theresa Airey, Vaughn Evans, Sheilagh Head, Chris Marson, Robert Steinmetz, Bruce Stewart, Alfred Birdsey, Marion Robb, April Bronco, Tracy Williams and Randy Puckett.

I was especially surprised by the painting of the Unfinished Church at St George’s by Marion Robb. I knew her as The Royal Gazette’s art critic. Her art was new to me.

Its an attractive exhibition, one that I’m sure most visitors enjoyed, featuring several large Charles Lloyd Tucker landscape watercolours. The Chris Marson seascape is simply joyous. It’s a simple composition that works, especially its colour harmonies.

The exhibition closed on June 30.