When Alfred Birdsey first took up painting – believed to be at the age of 16 – he could never have imagined that today he would be regarded as one of Bermuda's greatest 20th century artists.

Nor could E. Michael Jones have foreseen that when he began buying paintings from his friend and mentor for a song in 1979, his approximately 140-strong collection today would become so valuable.

In fact, the almost entirely self-taught artist's paintings are now highly-prized collector's items, with prices which reflect that whenever they come up for sale.

Popular with visitors and locals, Mr. Birdsey's distinctive paintings have found their way onto the walls of countless homes, offices, student dorms and more, both here and abroad, while others, like Mr. Jones' collection, have remained unframed but carefully stored – until now, that is.

Because the former St. George's mayor has decided to share some of them with the public in an exhibition, now underway at the Ace Gallery, on Woodbourne Avenue.

What makes this exhibition so special is that, until now, no-one has ever seen the 35 selected pieces except the artist and Mr. Jones.

Admitting that "art is in his blood" and he has spent most of his life around it, Mr. Jones was first a student of the late Charles Lloyd Tucker at the Berkeley Institute.

After Mr. Tucker's death, he began spending time with Mr. Birdsey and the two became close friends.

"I would go to his house all the time. I'd knock on the door and say, 'I'm home', and have a cup of tea, or make a sandwich and have lunch. We'd go down to his studio at the back of his garden and sit off and chat. I spent hours with him," he remembers.

When Mr. Jones joined the Department of Tourism in 1979 and was posted to its Toronto office, like so many Bermudians he wanted to take a bit of home with him, so he purchased his first six Birdseys.

Returning to the Island in the mid-1980s, Mr. Jones began spending even more time with his artist friend – and purchasing more and more art.

"In the mornings, Alfred would get up, have breakfast, and then paint 25 or 30 paintings in his living room. That would be his output for the day. If he made a few hundred dollars a day that would be enough for him," Mr. Jones said.

"In fact, that was one of the things he always gave me a hard time about. I'd go there in the early morning before the work had been picked over so I got a better selection and he'd say to me, 'now look, you're not going to buy all of my paintings, are you?' They'd be $10 to $12 each and I'd buy six to 10 at a time. It was not uncommon, if you bought two or three paintings, for him to throw in another one for free."

In fact, the Birdsey studio near Stowe Hill, in Paget, was a "must" for visitors, many of whom returned again and again to chat with the artist, who was quite a character, and acquire more of his work. More often than not, they would also leave with local fruits following a tour of his garden.

"Alfred enjoyed being in his studio chatting with the visitors just as much as he enjoyed painting," Mr. Jones says.

Born in Bedfordsire, England in 1912, Birdsey came to Bermuda with his family in 1919, when his father joined the Royal Navy at Dockyard. His formal education ended at age 11, and at the age of 16 he went to work in a bookstore. As it also sold art supplies, he got to know many of the artists on the Island, several of whom mentored him. His earliest known paintings are dated 1937.

From the time he first became interested in art, Birdsey read extensively about the subject and painters, and by the 1960s became aware of cubist/modernist painters, among them Paul Klee, Georges Braque and Lyonel Feininger, whose influence would be seen in his work.

"Alfred would look at the work of all the great artists of the world, read their books, and say, 'Okay', and that day his style might be influenced by what he had read," Mr. Jones added. "In the exhibition you will find examples of all the periods he went through. I have a painting of a cat with a bird in his mouth on which he wrote, 'Copy Picasso'. Very often you could see where his technique had been affected by what another artist had done."

However, it was a meeting with Joe Jones, an American modernist artist who came to Bermuda to paint in the winter of 1958, that led to the development of the style with which Birdsey is most closely identified.As the duo experimented with various painting styles and imagery, the Bermuda artist, working in watercolour, began to develop his characteristic mature style of loose brushwork and minimalist imagery. By the late 1960s he was the complete master of a medium that was uniquely his.

Birdsey's technique fascinated Mr. Jones, and even today he remembers watching his talented friend use various letters of the alphabet in abstract to represent windows, for example.

"Alfred didn't have to be realistic because he was an abstract artist who was making representations, so it was really fun to watch the technique he used," he says.

As successful as Birdsey's characteristic style was, he also painted in oils, of which Mr. Jones also owns a significant number. The range of his subject matter also broadened to include portraits – wife Wilma was a frequent subject – and large murals for the walls of commercial properties. He also taught himself lithography, silkscreen painting and woodblock printing, and even made his own paper when imported supplies ran low.

Described in the exhibition literature as "a humble man who, with his sensitivity, humour, wit and ability, created a vision that defined Bermuda during the second half of the 20th century" Birdsey, who died in 1996, is also fondly remembered by his long-time friend and fellow artist.

"I enjoyed spending time with him. He had a bright mind and was willing to share it. He would give you his heart," Mr. Jones says.

¦ For further information on 'An Exhibition of Paintings by Alfred Birdsey from the Collection of E. Michael Jones' see the Bermuda Calendar.