Resorts at Sea: Matson's Polynesian Paradises

I found this fascinating piece online last year through a digital library; never thought I’d actually have one in my possession.

The booklet lists the artists and describes their work for Mariposa and Monterey, two Mariner-class freighters rebuilt at a cost of $16 million apiece in 1956. Matson Lines used them on their South Pacific route. There’s no publication date, but Mariposa entered service in 1956, Monterey in 1957, so let’s put it at 1957. Let’s take a look at some of what’s inside …

The Bruton sisters were prolific California artists. Esther was one of the winners of the 1940 Section of Fine Arts competition that decorated the President Jackson-class. A third sister, Margaret, helped out Helen with the Lurline’s dining room mosaics.

Edna Andrade is best known for Op-Art, those large-scale eye-tricking graphics using geometric forms to create illusions of movement. If you’ve seen Roger Sterling’s office in Mad Men, you may have noticed the black and white wall-sized piece with dots of varying sizes. It’s not hers, but it is symbolic of her work. In her 50s when she started experimenting with that style, she joked she was always stone cold sober.

Raymond Rice was another prolific Californian. However, it’s been fun digging up info on him as search engines often confuse him with Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens.

Emmy Lou Packard was a fascinating woman. Assistant/protégé to Diego Rivera, she became an artist in her own right after World War II. Quite the activist, she was anti-Vietnam, anti-war, anti-Reagan, and in the 1950s, she was subpoenaed by the House un-American Activities Committee. She proactively went on the radio to discuss the matter, and in the end was never called. Towards the end of her life, she was focused on her book about Rivera and Frieda Kahlo.

Bumpei Akaji and Sargent Johnson definitely walked to the beat of their respective drums. Better known for his welded sculpture, Akaji’s works are all over the Hawaiian Islands. Akaji would rather give his works away than be paid. Johnson was a painter, sculptor, printmaker, carver, and much more.

Several other artists are listed, and have proven difficult to pin down among them: Marian Norton Lefcourte and Arvid Orbeck.

These are the shots I really like, the artists working on their pieces. I'm sure many of them were staged, but still. I recently reviewed the microfilm of Emmy Lou Packard's papers from the American Artist Archive at the Smithsonian, and was very pleased to know that the originals of many of the pictures showing her work for these ships are in color. (We can live with black and white, but we very much prefer color.)

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.