The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas

Villa Doyle was built in the 1860s for a colonial chief justice and stood derelict for decades before it was restored and opened in 2003 as the national gallery, which makes it one of the youngest national art collections in the region. It holds Bahamian art from the eighteenth century onward, with the strength in the twentieth: Amos Ferguson, a house painter who worked in enamel on cardboard and became the best known intuitive artist in the country; Brent Malone; Maxwell Taylor's prints; and Antonius Roberts, whose carved figures also stand at Clifton. The National Exhibition, held every two years, is the main survey of contemporary work.

History

Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham announced the gallery in 1996, part of an effort to record the story of the nation independent since 1973, and it was housed in Villa Doyle, built in the 1860s for Sir William Henry Doyle, one of the first Chief Justices of the Bahamas, and enlarged in the 1920s. Left to decay, with some urging its demolition as a colonial symbol, the house was saved through the historian Gail Saunders, restored through the 1990s over almost seven years by the architect Anthony Jervis and the engineer George Cox, and opened as the National Art Gallery in 2003 (Wikipedia, National Art Gallery of the Bahamas).

What you'll find

• Amos Ferguson - enamel on cardboard, the country's best known intuitive artist.
• The twentieth-century collection - Malone, Taylor, Roberts and contemporaries.
• Villa Doyle - the restored 1860s mansion the gallery occupies.
• The National Exhibition - the biennial contemporary survey.

When to go

Year-round; closed Sundays and Mondays. Weekday mornings are quiet. The National Exhibition runs every second year from December. There are free entry days, which are announced on the gallery's own channels.

Things to know

It is small and takes two hours at most, and the permanent collection rotates so a particular artist may not be on show. Funding is limited and the building can only display a fraction of what it holds. Labels are informative but sparse. Cruise passengers rarely come this way, which keeps it quiet.

Nearby

Downtown Nassau is a short walk downhill; the Queen's Staircase is nearby.

Key facts