Modern art takes to the waves
In 1933 Cunard commissioned paintings from Edward Wadsworth and other leading British artists for its new flagship liner, the "Queen Mary". But, as Abbie N. Sprague explains, artistic expression had to bend to commercial taste.
Abbie N. Sprague, Wednesday, 23rd April 2008
For three years, between 1936 and 1939, the Queen Mary sailed between Southampton and New York, the fastest ocean liner on the Atlantic. However, by 1940, safe travel across the ocean was no longer viable. The Queen Mary and her sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth, were painted grey and pulled into the war effort. For the next six years the ‘Grey Ghosts’, as the ships were known, transported troops around the globe. At times the Queen Mary carried as many as 16,000 men and women. Winston Churchill claimed that by putting these two ocean liners into service, the war ended earlier and countless lives were saved.62 Restored to her former purpose in 1947, the Queen Mary remained in service until 1967, when she was permanently docked in Long Beach, California, where Arrival and Dressed Overall still hang in situ. Considering their part in transporting thousands of troops to Europe, and in spite of minor graffiti in the lower right-hand corner of Arrival and the darkened varnish, the paintings are in relatively good condition.
Wadsworth described the smoking lounge to a friend: ‘The room is ugly, but the small picture isn’t bad’.63 Understandably, he was dissatisfied with the alterations made to his original proposal. Nonethe-less, despite the disagreements, disappointments and challenges of the commission, his involvement with the century’s greatest ocean liner was always a source of pride for Wadsworth. On the morning of 27 May 1936, he drove to Southampton and, with more than a quarter of a million other well-wishers, watched as the Queen Mary set out for New York on her maiden voyage.64
Abbie N. Sprague, an expert on the British tempera revivial, is working on her doctoral dissertation, 'Painting in the Arts and Crafts Movement', at the University of Cambridge.
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