Island artists and photographers this week remembered Brandy Wight as a person who encouraged them early in their careers and helped them prosper.

The arts and antiques collector and dealer died Feb. 26 at the age of 101 in Gainesville, Fla. Among other things, he co-founded the Granary Gallery in West Tisbury, and has been described as an early pioneer in the arts movement on the Vineyard.

“He was a most remarkable man who added so much to the pleasures and culture of Martha’s Vineyard,” said Hannah Malkin, a jewelry artist and longtime friend who lives in Chilmark and Boca Raton, Fla.

Mr. Wight and his companion Bruce Blackwell owned the Granary from 1977 to 1990, when they gave countless numbers of Vineyard artists a start in their careers.

Mr. Wight told Vineyard oral historian Linsey Lee in a 1995 interview: “Our artists were more or less Island-oriented, we never showed artists that would show other than Island things, unless they happened to be antique pictures.”

Photographer Alison Shaw recalled that having a show at the Granary was “the pinnacle of success” for any young artist.

Photographer Peter Simon recalled in the 1980s when Mr. Wight introduced him to photographer Bruce Davidson, whose work he had always admired. “He also introduced me to Alfred Eisenstaedt.‘Have you met your young protégé?’ was the way Brandy put it,” he said.

Andrew Moore a Harthaven painter who today earns a living with his art, recalled his first show at the Granary when he sold enough paintings to buy a white Toyota pickup truck. “That was in the 1980s, and I was only 24 or 25 at the time,” Mr. Moore said. “I couldn’t believe being so successful.”

Steve Mills, West Tisbury painter, reportedly was a high school student when he first approached Mr. Wight to show him his paintings and inquire about a possible show. He was told he should wait. When he was in his 20s Mr. Mills approached Mr. Wight again and was invited to have his first one-man show. Today Steve Mills admirers line up outside the gallery every year for his popular shows.

Chris Morse, present owner of the gallery who began as an employee; Emily Bramhall who sold antique furniture for a time in the gallery; and Ellen McCloskey, artist and longtime employee, lauded Mr. Wight similarly for his generosity, his ability to judge art, his business acumen, but above all for his kindness.

Friends and neighbors also remembered Mr. Wight with fondness from his years living in his family homestead on Music street in the 1960s.

Nieces Judy Lutender of Southboro and Karen Duffy of Aquinnah remembered him as a wonderful uncle who when he lived in New York would always make sure they came for an annual visit and were taken to the theatre. He also talked Judy, a student of nursing, out of quitting before her course was complete.

“And he doted on Christmas and always loaded us with gifts,” Ms. Duffy said. “In our childhood, when we lived on the Vineyard, gifts would be chosen from the Sears Roebuck Catalogue. Brandy’s gifts for us were just extraordinary. We’d get satin dresses and fur collars from Lord & Taylor, where he worked. We had no place to wear things like that, but how we loved them. I remember how he took us to The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center when I was five years old. Brandy introduced us to the magic of the world.”

In the interview with Ms. Lee, Mr. Wight recalled his own memories from the days of living on Music street.

“I’ll have to admit that . . . in my grammar school days I found visiting West Tisbury very lonesome and I didn’t find it a place I enjoyed,” he said. “Before that, I enjoyed going to Oak Bluffs and so forth, but I think at the time I should have had more pals and so forth. I didn’t have many, there weren’t any contemporaries in West Tisbury at that time. It’s hard to believe now when it’s so different, but it was very quiet.”