Resorts at Sea is officially Murals on the High Seas

So the person who knows the least about building a website is building a website. I've said from time to time, whenever tackling a challenging project, that "I don't know enough not to try." Uh ... Yeah, if that doesn't fit now ...

The home page. The use of circular images gives the impression of portholes.
The tag line: It is art. It is history. Is it art history? (Ay, there's the rub.) 
A little cheesy, but there's no need to get too serious.

It all began with Resorts at Sea and a general interest in artworks created for American passenger ships. (You can read earlier entries by typing in "resorts at sea" in the search area at the upper right corner.) It was fun to see who did what and where it was installed. As I continued to dig, roadblocks kept cropping up with this national mural competition in 1940 to decorate American President Lines' President Jackson-class, seven ships designed for round-the-world passenger/cargo service. It was the second largest competition sponsored by the Section of Fine Arts, and it's become a veritable footnote. I aim to change that.

The New Deal portion has been the most intriguing chapter. 

Originally, the website was to focus on the Jackson-class, but many of the winners received commissions for other liners, so the scope expanded. Focusing on newly-built ships, the story starts with Matson Line's Malolo in 1927 and ending with the nuclear ship Savannah in 1962; covering about 50 ships total. The Malolo utilized art depicting scenes of Hawaii and California, as that was her route, while the Savannah is unique for artworks loaned by the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The story ends with the nuclear ship Savannah, which is still afloat in Baltimore.

Organized by decade (1920s, 1930s, etc.), these American ships will be placed in an even broader context, as you'll be able to look at artworks on foreign liners, like Empress of Britain, Bremen, Normandie, Queen Mary, Andrea Doria, and Rotterdam, to name a few. The fun part has been locating images with identifiable artworks in clear focus; not always an easy task. As a result, not all artworks can be shown.

It's been amazing the amount of resources consulted and/or gathered in this project; 
book covers are shown in the "portholes." Many will be shown in the Odds & Ends tab.

Phase One will take care of the basics: a little history, minor observations, and the obligatory Facebook page to drive traffic and conversation. (And acceptance that the site will continue to evolve, and not be 100% perfect right out of the gate.) Phase Two will include more observations, comparisons, exploration of themes, and the possible addition of more ships. Phase Three will include a book deal, traveling exhibit, perhaps a lecture tour, because why not? If we're going to do this, let's do it up right.

The Peabody Essex Museum, in cooperation with the Victoria and Albert Museum, just wrapped up Ocean Liners: Speed and Style, dedicated to all aspects of the ocean liner culture. Alas, I wasn't able to make the trip to see it, but I do have the book, and it's very well done, but with little emphasis on our side of "the pond." *grumble grumble* It does make for a nice benchmark, though.

Anyway, I think things are on track to launch sometime in March 2018. See you on the "maiden voyage!"

Resorts at Sea: Malolo | Queen Frederica

Several of the ships in Resorts at Sea ended their days under foreign ownership. Among the first vessels examined, Matson’s Malolo, built in 1927, lasted until the late 1970s. Most of that time was spent under the moniker Queen Frederica for National Hellenic Lines, and later for Chandris.

As cruise ships today seem to have theme room after theme room, before the mid to late 1930s, American ships had a similar pattern: Georgian lounge, Tudor library; a hodgepodge of dated styles designed to keep the traveler’s mind off the sea outside. Post World War II, a unified “modern” look took hold, with each seafaring nation putting their own stamp on things via artworks and furnishings. Currently, I’m of the opinion that American ships embraced the sea and a seafaring heritage more than other nations.

(One of the better quotes I’ve found addressing this switch includes the phrase “decorative claptrap.” And you can find the source yourself; I’m not going to give it all away.)

I have two Queen Frederica brochures. Neither are dated. (Dang it.) The smaller one, page wise, on the left, is probably after 1955, but before a 1960 refit; the latter, and larger of the two, is after the refit.

When Malolo was originally built, stained woodwork, and lots of it, was the rule. Oddly, given the California to Hawaii route, and later South Pacific cruises, dark wood wasn’t given a second thought. Dark tones absorb heat, and this was before the days of air-conditioning. Whatever the ventilation, it must have been stifling, and the dark, oppressive woodwork would not have helped. A refit that raised the lifeboats up a deck and added several Lanai suites also resulted in a name change, to Matsonia. The original interior décor was not altered. Here’s a shot of the smoking room …

After the war, under foreign ownership, Matsonia’s woodwork was painted. Ordinarily, I would disapprove. White was the predominant color, but depending upon the room, gold, grey, or green was used as an accent. Coupled with colorful art and modern furniture, it works. Case in point …

This shot of the foyer between the lounge and Crystal Club is from the older brochure. Get a load of that mural! (Unfortunately, no idea who did it.) Note the grey columns, cross beams, and selected panels, as well as the slate blue baseboard. Not a fan of the pink and green floor, but that’s why they make rugs.

The first class dining room underwent a change, too. Odds are the décor on the upper level are mere stencils, but they do add to the overall scheme of things. (Not that I’m part of the “something is better than nothing” crowd, but if a space needs to be broken up, there are worse ways to go about it.) Note the two fans towards the back of the image, a holdover from the Matson days? The flooring may well be Malolo original, too, from the Pennsylvania Flooring and Woodoleum Manufacturing Company of Philadelphia.

One more room caught my eye, the children’s playroom. I do believe there are some well-known Disney characters on the left. One couldn’t get away with that today without paying hefty licensing fees.

Overall, these looks are a prototype for what is considered today’s luxe design. Take a look at any high-end magazine, like Architectural Digest, for land-based versions, or sticking to the seas: Oceania Cruises and Crystal Cruises, to name two.

Something to ponder ... A bit outside the realm of possibility, but had it been feasible, do you think a non-British operator, doing a France/Norway-type conversion, would've painted over Queen Mary's opulent veneers, culled from over 50 types of trees from all corners of the globe?

Resorts at Sea - February 2013

The first ship in this study should be Matson Lines’ Malolo, which entered service in 1927.

(Now I’m still wrestling with whether the Leviathan should take this spot. Technically the German-built Vaterland, William Francis Gibbs gave the ship a top to bottom rejuvenation, but if I hold true to keeping the ships in this study American-built, then no Leviathan. Argh.)

I found a pamphlet listing the artworks installed on the Malolo. Not murals, they were paintings meant to accessorize whatever room they were placed. I don’t believe they were specially created for the ship.

However, the prints adorning the staterooms and suites were created specifically for the Malolo. I had the name of Mary J. Coulter, but little else. Then I stumbled across a small piece in a long-defunct magazine: The Argus. (Subtitled: A Journal of Art Criticism and News.) Folios of the prints onboard the Malolo were on display in two galleries in San Francisco.

Stranger things have been listed on WorldCat.org, so why not search? Lo and behold, a catalogue of etchings and dry points* dated 1927, same year the Malolo entered service, same year The Argus article appeared. Not 100% conclusive proof, but as her work for the Malolo took two years, did Coulter make time for other projects? Perhaps, just to take a break and do something different, but that’s how I would do it. (And I admit Time Management is not always my friend.)

To my knowledge, there are no libraries in my area that are on WorldCat, so it may take a personal visit to check this lead out.

*Yeah, I didn’t know what dry points were either. Webster’s says a dry point is “a fine, hard needle for engraving lines on a copper plate without using acid.” Sounds pretty time-consuming.

Resorts at Sea: June 2012

The harvesting of artist info continues. With that brings avenues of exploration that I must not go down. Several of these artists, such as Willem de Kooning and Philip Guston dove head long into Abstract Expressionism after their WPA work on their respective ships, thus more info is available on these latter portions of their careers. (Fun to look at, the subject matter is, admittedly, not for the masses, and some of it would have looked quite freakish on board a ship. Case in point ... after showing her the exhibit catalogue for 12 Americans, my 92-year-old grandmother said it looked like children did it,  and not in the good way.)

There have been days where I swear I’ve come close to breaking Google. Or maybe it’s a warning to back off a little. But I have found more artist-ship connections. I also found a digital library with lots … nay … tons of Matson Line ephemera. When their Malolo debuted in 1927, a pamphlet listing the artists and their art was published. (Even the titles of the works were included!) Another one in 1957 described the works on the Mariposa and Monterey. Twelve new artists were added to the list with that pamphlet alone. Twelve. Yay!

Occasionally, the must have piece of ephemera becomes available. I’ve recently lost two auctions for this American Export Lines brochure that has color photos of the public spaces on board the Independence and Constitution. On the other hand, I didn’t know it existed, so I guess that’s some consolation. This piece contains the names of artists who decorated the Tourist Class dining rooms. The photo posted on eBay was a little blurry, but I think I have derived the names. However, without this piece, or any other evidence, my conclusion is mere conjecture.

But I made up for it -- a little -- with a 1948 deck plan for Moore-McCormack's Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Until now, I've had only a partial list of public spaces, and only the faintest idea as to their layouts.