IN the hilltop village of Runnemede, along Tobago’s Northside Road, lives a widowed father of two, merchant Allister Bruce.
One evening, 26 years ago, Bruce was on his way to pick up his infant daughter from school when the vehicle plunged off a bridge down into the valley and into the Rocky River.
They found him broken and paralyzed in the overturned Land Rover. How the accident happened, no one found out.
When he died ten days later at Port of Spain General Hospital, Bruce had never been further from home.
He had only been married for three years when he died. He was 30 years old.
Avril Stewart-Bruce’s wife never remarried.
She created life in a house on the edge of a cliff, not far from the famous silk-cotton tree that had grown there since its inhabitants were enslaved on the Runnemede sugar estate.
And this is where we found her that day when we went to inquire about her long-dead husband, a man whose face she thought had been forgotten by all but her loved ones.
Avril was wrong about that.
“Bruce” is in art galleries, homes and places of business all over the world, we told her.
She could also find the features of his face and body in paintings, murals and sculptures located in one of the most fascinating places in Tobago that you might have never seen.
“I can’t begin to understand this,” Avril said.
That’s how we explained it.
When German-born Professor Luise Kimme arrived in Tobago in 1979, she was 40 years old and already an acclaimed sculptor, writer and painter, her work and life celebrated in iconic cities in Europe and the United States.
But it was on the island that Kimme would create a space like no other, on a property below the village of Bethel, overlooking Mount Irvine Bay and its golf course.
‘castle’
Her greatest works were created there, bronze and wooden sculptures representing the men, women and children of Tobago, honoring their folklore, history, culture and the Orisha and Yoruba beliefs that survived slavery. And while she often left the island for her exhibitions and to teach in other countries, Kimme always returned to this country and her adopted people.
Little by little, the original house would grow over the years into the Kimme Museum of Sculpture and Art, which became known as “The Castle.” An unprepared traveler coming to that place would be surprised.
The presentation of the place is a creature from your dreams and statues of a dancing Tobagonian couple, which will hold your attention only as long as the figure of the dog-headed man with the bouquet of flowers catches your eye, the first scene near the pegs of the blue bird, the brass guards at the front door.
Kimme added a gallery to display her larger-than-life representations, and a studio where she thought and created things, wrote her books, and tolerated awe-inspiring visitors—when she wasn’t visiting a small circle of like-minded artists and thinkers. in all the world. .
She considered Peter Minshall an inspiration, basked in the bronze statue he made of Calypso Queen of the World Calypso Rose (a Bethel native), focused on her beloved dogs, and studied what she considered her passion. its real – ancient sculpture and salsa dancing. for which she became known.
The most beautiful man
Kimme’s work included more than 100 wood and bronze sculptures carved from oak trees salvaged from a storm-damaged German forest and shipped to Tobago, and countless other pieces scattered along the passageways and staircases, objects that to admit that they were meant to be there and nowhere. other.
New York-based architect Ekkehart Schwarz was credited with the structural drawings of the unique building carved into the hillside, with its points and windows inspired by the architecture of famous buildings and paintings of all eras.
But it would be Tobago’s local craftsmen who Kimme named as the men who built her castle – mason/carpenters Roger Duncan, Dusty Williams and Allister Bruce.
The men would live alone on the property during the construction phase, which lasted more than a decade, leaving their handiwork at every level as they used the site to learn their craft, on an island where only the rich admit the best craftsmanship.
And it was Allister Bruce whom Kimme would mark as “the most beautiful man she had ever seen” who would become her “imaginary model for sculpture and drawing for some time”.
Many great artists had a muse who influenced and inspired them.
And once you see Bruce’s pictures, you can’t miss him at the Kimme Museum.
We told his widow this during that awkward meeting that Christmas at Runnemede.
“I know they were close,” she told us, “but I didn’t know it was that deep.”
To him, Allister Bruce was a good man.
“I want people to know that he was a kind person, easy to get along with. He was a popular person.”
Avril Stewart-Bruce has never visited the Kimme Museum. She aims now.
Luise Kimme died at her home in Tobago in April 2013.
But her art lives on, along with her “castle” dreams, which are now being pursued by her friend, trusted artist and now Tobago resident, Cuban sculptor Dunieski Lora Pileta.
Together with his wife, Arlety Arias, he has kept this magical place alive.
Both have continued to create. Their work honors the site, paintings, woodcuts, bronze sculptures (one is of Lord Nelson), from miniatures to life-size, and works made from recycled materials and plastics collected on the beaches of Tobago.
The museum was closed to the public for some time after students from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts in Germany used the location to create artworks exhibited at the Y Art Gallery in Trinidad.
However, Dunieski said classes continued for local students interested in the art of bronze casting.
The Luise Kimme Museum reopens on September 18.
