National Gallery of the Cayman Islands

The National Gallery of the Cayman Islands

For over a decade the National Gallery has been fortunate to receive the support of individuals, businesses and the wider Cayman Islands community in support of our mission to “promote and encourage the appreciation and practice of the visual arts, of and in the Cayman Islands”.

The National Gallery had its inception at informal meetings at Government House in 1997 by a small group of dedicated people including founding Chair Carol Owen, MBE, and founding director Leslie Bigelman, MBE, as well as long-serving board members including Bendel Hydes, John Doak, and Martyn Bould. The National Gallery Law came to fruition in 2001, at which point the Gallery operated out of Alexander Place. We moved in 2002 to its current home is at Harbour Place due to the kindness of board member Andreas Ugland.

With the help of this support we have provided the general public with access to a wide variety of impressive exhibitions and maintained a number of key programs towards our goals such as our Lecture Series that offer the community the opportunity to hear both local and international artists and craftspeople discuss their work. Past lecturers have included Joan Knopf, Curator of the Salvador Dali Museum, photographer Phil Borges and Tom Sokolowsky, Director of the Andy Warhol Museum, to name a few.

Our Workshops Series disseminate artistic skills into the Caymanian community, and also enable the skills and talents of Caymanian artists to be shared with the international community. Example of past workshops include; “West African Cassava Paste Resist Textile Art” by Winsome, and “Life Drawings” by Robyn Nichols.

We have established Outreach Programmes to ensure the widest possible access to its services, by taking the National Gallery to the community. Our outreach programmes serve the needs of at-risk youth, the incarcerated, the workplace without art, and to others whose lives have not yet been touched with the richness of what the visual arts have to offer. These programmes have touched communities and institutions such as; H.M. Eagle House, Bonaventure House, Caribbean Haven, the Frances Bodden Girls home and others.

Our School Programmes and Gallery Tours offer primary and secondary schools the chance to gain proper access to the exhibitions by touring the premises with skilled and experienced Gallery staff. These exhibitions cover a wide variety of themes and media and can be used to enrich learning in every area of the curriculum: a visit to the Gallery will encourage students to learn how to read and enjoy looking at art, and demonstrate how art in all of its forms, can link with other subjects, and with their own experiences. The tours are accompanied by an interactive worksheet devised for both primary and secondary level students.

Construction toward a new home for visual arts in the Cayman Islands, the new National Gallery purpose-built facility will commence in 2010 after the past five years of focussed fundraising efforts. With the generous donation of land located on the Harquail Bypass which was donated by Mrs. Helen Harquail, OBE, our vision is now firmly set on finding more suitable accommodation to carry out the Gallery’s functions.

Our goal is to have a purpose built facility by December 2011.