Speed & Style was the first international exhibition devoted ocean liners; strange, given that maritime disasters, public romances and the bright poster art of shipping companies have been part of popular culture for decades. In their Inter-War heyday, rival British, French, German and Italian ships dashed across the Atlantic.
As the largest machines of their age by far, ocean liners became powerful symbols of progress and modernity. No other form of transport was so romantic, so impressive. From the late C19th to the mid C20th, the ocean liner revolutionised ocean travel. So the exhibition wanted to explore the design and cultural impact of the ocean liners.
5 ms long
Beginning with Isambard Kingdom Brunel's steamship, the Great Eastern ship of 1859, the exhibition traced ocean liner design - from the Beaux-Arts interiors of Kronprinz Wilhelm, Titanic and its sister ship, Olympic, to the floating Art Deco palaces of Queen Mary and Normandie, and the streamlined SS United States & QE2. It examined all aspects of these ships' design, from innovative engineering and fashionable interiors, to the lifestyle on board. Plus it examined the impact on art, architecture, design and film.
The exhibition displayed the golden age of ocean travel with 250+ objects eg film clips, publicity posters, branded crockery, haute couture dresses and luxury luggage. Children loved the engine-room telegraph made of teak and brass that the P&O ship Canberra installed in its nursery, and the small captain’s wheel.
Especially clothes! The exhibition showcased one of the most important flapper dresses in V&A's collection, Jeanne Lanvin's Salambo dress, displayed at my all-time favourite Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925. Also the Christian Dior suit worn by Marlene Dietrich as she arrived in New York aboard the Queen Mary in 1950. And there was a handsome Lucien Lelong couture gown worn for the Normandie’s maiden voyage in 1935.
A precious Cartier tiara, recovered from the Lusitania when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915, was beautiful, as was a lacquered wall from the Smoking Room of the French liner, Normandie, and Stanley Spencer's painting The Riveters from the 1941 series "Shipbuilding on the Clyde". The display also featured works by Modernist artists, designers and architects inspired by liners including Le Corbusier – and revealed the largely forgotten history of leading artists and designers who contributed to their design eg William De Morgan and Richard Riemerschmid. Be still my beating heart!
The 5 ms-high lacquered gold panel was part of the art deco interior on the French ship Normandie and was loaned to the V&A from the Paris Museum of Modern Art. It was 5 ms high and was the latest expression of French luxury design.
A golden wall panel from The Normandie,
Decorated doors, panels and furniture
The SS France, 1912
Speaking more architecturally, the Ocean Liners exhibition explored how the structures on board changed as the requirements of new markets shifted attitudes, as well as the democratisation of travel and development of leisure activities in the C20th. It also considered the shrewd promotional strategies used by shipping companies to reposition the on-board experience, as emigration gave way to aspirational travel, and highlighted the political shifts and the international rivalry that developed over 100 years, as liners became floating national showcases.
No wonder the objects being displayed were expensive. Curator Ghislaine Wood said the Normandie, which travelled between Le Havre and New York in the 1930s, was “luxury beyond the means of most people. A ticket for two passengers on the Normandie in 1935 was about £17,000 in today’s money”. Unsurprisingly, the 1st class decks were full of royals, actors, society beauties and magnates.
It was less luxurious in the lower decks. More cramped and less decorated, few migrants would have described their experience as attractive. And yet, far more than the stained-glass ceilings, libraries and string quartets on the upper decks, the ships on which the migrants sailed were actually very well designed both for speed and heavy seas. A 22ft-long model of the Queen Elizabeth revealed how proud the liner’s owners were of its pleasing form: created in 1940 to stand in the window of Cunard’s Broadway offices. And an entire wall was given over to a rippling blue sea, crossed by a series of computer-generated liners trailing smoke from their funnels. The exhibition carefully remembered the technology that made this possible, and the 1.4 million European migrants who left for the New World in 1913 on which the trade’s profits were originally founded.
The exhibition was a cooperative work between the V & A and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem Mass; it then moved to the Scottish V&A in Dundee. The project was sponsored by Viking Cruises.
The QE2, built to cross the Atlantic in winter, was among the last of the big ships shaped by design traditions rooted in the late C19th. So now the old ocean liner is remembered only via modern culture, literature and films. They demonstrate how nostalgia for the great Floating Palaces of the past can still be felt today.
Fans might like to order a beautiful book that accompanied the V & A exhibition, written by Daniel Finamore (2018).
Beginning with Isambard Kingdom Brunel's steamship, the Great Eastern ship of 1859, the exhibition traced ocean liner design - from the Beaux-Arts interiors of Kronprinz Wilhelm, Titanic and its sister ship, Olympic, to the floating Art Deco palaces of Queen Mary and Normandie, and the streamlined SS United States & QE2. It examined all aspects of these ships' design, from innovative engineering and fashionable interiors, to the lifestyle on board. Plus it examined the impact on art, architecture, design and film.
The exhibition displayed the golden age of ocean travel with 250+ objects eg film clips, publicity posters, branded crockery, haute couture dresses and luxury luggage. Children loved the engine-room telegraph made of teak and brass that the P&O ship Canberra installed in its nursery, and the small captain’s wheel.
Especially clothes! The exhibition showcased one of the most important flapper dresses in V&A's collection, Jeanne Lanvin's Salambo dress, displayed at my all-time favourite Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925. Also the Christian Dior suit worn by Marlene Dietrich as she arrived in New York aboard the Queen Mary in 1950. And there was a handsome Lucien Lelong couture gown worn for the Normandie’s maiden voyage in 1935.
Maison Goyard luggage and Dior suit, 1950
Publicity posters
from shipping companies
A precious Cartier tiara, recovered from the Lusitania when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915, was beautiful, as was a lacquered wall from the Smoking Room of the French liner, Normandie, and Stanley Spencer's painting The Riveters from the 1941 series "Shipbuilding on the Clyde". The display also featured works by Modernist artists, designers and architects inspired by liners including Le Corbusier – and revealed the largely forgotten history of leading artists and designers who contributed to their design eg William De Morgan and Richard Riemerschmid. Be still my beating heart!
The 5 ms-high lacquered gold panel was part of the art deco interior on the French ship Normandie and was loaned to the V&A from the Paris Museum of Modern Art. It was 5 ms high and was the latest expression of French luxury design.
1935, 5 ms high
The SS France, 1912
Speaking more architecturally, the Ocean Liners exhibition explored how the structures on board changed as the requirements of new markets shifted attitudes, as well as the democratisation of travel and development of leisure activities in the C20th. It also considered the shrewd promotional strategies used by shipping companies to reposition the on-board experience, as emigration gave way to aspirational travel, and highlighted the political shifts and the international rivalry that developed over 100 years, as liners became floating national showcases.
No wonder the objects being displayed were expensive. Curator Ghislaine Wood said the Normandie, which travelled between Le Havre and New York in the 1930s, was “luxury beyond the means of most people. A ticket for two passengers on the Normandie in 1935 was about £17,000 in today’s money”. Unsurprisingly, the 1st class decks were full of royals, actors, society beauties and magnates.
It was less luxurious in the lower decks. More cramped and less decorated, few migrants would have described their experience as attractive. And yet, far more than the stained-glass ceilings, libraries and string quartets on the upper decks, the ships on which the migrants sailed were actually very well designed both for speed and heavy seas. A 22ft-long model of the Queen Elizabeth revealed how proud the liner’s owners were of its pleasing form: created in 1940 to stand in the window of Cunard’s Broadway offices. And an entire wall was given over to a rippling blue sea, crossed by a series of computer-generated liners trailing smoke from their funnels. The exhibition carefully remembered the technology that made this possible, and the 1.4 million European migrants who left for the New World in 1913 on which the trade’s profits were originally founded.
The exhibition was a cooperative work between the V & A and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem Mass; it then moved to the Scottish V&A in Dundee. The project was sponsored by Viking Cruises.
The QE2, built to cross the Atlantic in winter, was among the last of the big ships shaped by design traditions rooted in the late C19th. So now the old ocean liner is remembered only via modern culture, literature and films. They demonstrate how nostalgia for the great Floating Palaces of the past can still be felt today.
Fans might like to order a beautiful book that accompanied the V & A exhibition, written by Daniel Finamore (2018).
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10 comments:
I love ocean liners and Art Deco so this post suits me nicely. I've only been on one cruise but have visited Brunel's SS Great Britain in Bristol and the former Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinbugh (faint traces of Art Deco but more G-Plan!).
I particularly like your photo of the golden panel from the Normandie. The silhouette of the lady somehow scales and enhances the picture. We saw the Titanic exhibition in Greenwich a few years ago. Seeing 'third class crockery' and 'first class'menus etc made the exhibition more of a social document. The image of 'luxury' was overridden by that of 'class'!
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Hello Hels, Although many books and films romanticize the great liners, I am still glad I was born after that era--the thought of being on a ship for so long, however luxurious, does not appeal to me.
You mention the 20th Century forces that spurred development of the great ships, but there was ample precedent. The paddle-wheel steamboats of the 19th century had competitively lavish interiors that are well documented in old photographs and by books such as Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi.
--Jim
Thank you for recommending Daniel Finamore's coffee table book.
The publishers wrote: "The great age of ocean travel has long since passed, but ocean liners remain one of the most powerful and admired symbols of modernity. This beautifully illustrated book considers over a century of liner design: from the striking graphics created to promote liners to the triumphs of engineering, and from luxurious interiors to on board fashion and activities. Ocean Liners explores the design of Victorian and Art Deco floating palaces, sleek post-war liners as well as these ships impact on avant-garde artists and architects such as Le Corbusier".
Amazon
bazza
I have been on two long cruises in my life, and loved the concept of sailing serenely. The concept of luxury was indeed overridden by that of class in the first half of the 20th century, but not by the time we were travelling in the second half of the 20th century.
The New Zealand and the South Pacific Cruise was a warmer trip, over flatter water, but there were few islands/cities to explore. On the other hand the cruise from Israel to Spain was not as luxurious, but each full day was a chance to explore amazing coastal cities in Greece, Italy, France, Majorca, Barcelona etc etc. *Sighs happily*
Parnassus
if you had to work 40 hours every week for a living, look after your family, run a car, do your own laundry, be available for your elderly parents every couple of days .... you were not the luxury liners' target audience. Except for the second class passengers and the migrants, the most rushed task the first class passengers had to do was decide on which restaurant to eat in :)
amazon
many thanks. Now I will also have to locate and read "Art Deco by the Sea", also co-authored
by Ghislaine Wood.
I love the art deco style of ships and trains. The posters from the time promoting such travel were wonderful. Compared to modern cruise ships, the ocean liners of the 20th century were quite small, and perhaps that is not a bad thing.
Andrew, I have just returned from 12 days in Madeira. One evening there were five cruise ships docked in Funchal, off-loading 11,000 people for 24 hours or so!
Andrew
Me too. The era following WW1 was a period of optimism, technological development, speed, luxury and fine design. For people who had the free time and the available cash to pay for luxury ships and trains, the era was a satisfying one. That ended of course for many during the Depression and for many more in 1939.
By the way, those travel posters you mentioned are still very collectible. I have three of them.
bazza
cruising is still hugely popular, isn't it?
Planes are smelly, squashy, exhausting and pollution-filled. Ships are spacious, relaxing, filled with great food and fascinating visits en route.
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