Read McKendree puts the finishing touches on a wall that will be used to display art inside Westerly’s old Industrial Trust Bank building.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

WESTERLY — “Transmutations: An Exhibition of Four Westerly Artists,” opens tonight and continues through Sept. 26 at Westerly’s century-old Industrial Trust Bank Building.

The former bank, which was also a private home in recent years, is now owned by the Westerly Land Trust, which purchased the 14 High St. location in 2005. Since then, it has been the site of other arts-related events and fundraisers.

“The intention is to make it available for the visual arts,” says Executive Director Kelly Presley, listing recent exhibits there by the New England Sculptors Association and the Artists’ Cooperative Gallery of Westerly. “We want to bring the public in to enjoy the architecture.”

Local resident Read McKendree hopes the public will also enjoy the exhibit that has been several months in the making.

The four artists involved have all been, he said, “inspired by Westerly and the surrounding area, the culture of Westerly and the people of Westerly.”

The artists — McKendree, Charlie Clough, Marcia Felber and Pamela Markham — will all be displaying new works.

According to McKendree, the exhibit will include oils, photography, and other combined media which he said celebrates the various methods of creation.

McKendree, a photographer, has been installing temporary walls to the lobby area of the former bank this week.

“I wanted the space and the architecture to stand out separately from the art,” he said. So while some of the work will hang from the bank walls, some of it will have walls all its own.

“It’s been slow moving,” said McKendree, who started organizing the show last winter. Presley said the former bank, where the Land Trust maintains its office, has several events planned into the fall and winter months, including a Sept. 28 afternoon concert with Musica Dolce. Last year during the Christmas season, the Dante Society of Westerly offered several nights of seasonal music.

Presley said she often leaves the front doors open when she is in the Land Trust office working so that people visiting the downtown area can stop in and look around.

Three stories high with a classic dome and Corinthian columns, the building dates to 1914; it replaced an earlier bank that had stood at that site since 1887.

Though Industrial Trust Company is carved in granite over the front door, it has also been called the Industrial National Bank. Built by local craftsmen of pink Westerly granite, many of the building’s original features, from doorknobs to molding, to grillwork, to arched windows, still exist. A new restroom has been installed on the first floor where safe deposit boxes once stood.

A huge window on the second floor looks down upon High Street, giving visitors an idea of what generations of bankers viewed from this very same perch.

The bank branch closed in the mid-1960s and the building was used by its new owners, Vars Brothers Associates, for storage for their nearby pharmacy. It was closed again for several years, until 1992 when artist Lowell Reiland bought it and turned it into his art studio and home. It went up for sale again in 2001. The building, which weathered hurricanes and downturns in business, backs up to the Pawcatuck River.

According to the Westerly Land Trust newsletter, opening up use of the building to nonprofit organizations is “in keeping with our mission to share our open spaces — indoors and out.”

• Gallery hours for “Transmutations: An Exhibition of Four Westerly Artists,” will be Wednesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with an opening tonight, from 6 to 9 p.m.

• A talk with artist Charlie Clough is scheduled for Wednesdayat 8 p.m.

• To contact the Westerly Land Trust, call (401) 315-2610 or check www.westerlylandtrust.org

afleming@projo.com