High Art on the High Seas

Sarah Hall Smith, art director for Regent Seven Seas Cruises, shares how she built a gallery on the water and where she finds the best art while in port.

By Brett Walther

The newest ship in Regent Seven Seas’ fleet enjoys an unusual claim to fame: Works of art outnumber guests more than two to one. A total of 1,600 paintings, prints, photographs and sculptures make Grandeur a gallery at sea, and like all galleries, the responsibility for choosing each piece, deciding on its placement and establishing the overall aesthetic lies with a curator.

Sarah Hall Smith, Regent’s art director, spent close to two years preparing the multi-million-dollar permanent art collection for Grandeur’s November 2023 launch. “The goal was to make it feel like it’s been curated over many years, like a residential collection would be,” Hall Smith says. “We’ve got bluechip artists like Rauschenberg, lithographs by Picasso and even a bespoke Fabergé egg. It’s a really eclectic collection, spread out across the entire ship.”

Range How do you decide what goes where?

Sarah Hall Smith It’s a big puzzle, honestly, but it’s driven by the venues themselves — what their intended use is, and the aesthetic that the architects have created in each space. We also want to install the more expensive feature pieces where they’re going to be seen and enjoyed most, so the atrium is home to a lot of the special commissions.

R Do you have a favorite special commission on board?

SHS For the entrance to the Pacific Rim restaurant, Savoy Studios crafted the bronze Bonsai Cherry Tree sculpture that’s covered in 1,200 hand-cast glass blossoms. Designing something like this from scratch — in tandem with the architects and executives — and having it exceed everybody’s expectations is something I’m particularly proud of.

R How are guests engaging with the art?

SHS Using the Regent mobile app, you can scan artwork with your phone, and it’ll pull up information about that particular piece, along with a documentary video about the artist. This is only available for certain pieces but will soon expand across the entire art collection. On other Regent ships, like Mariner, the cruise directors have run art scavenger hunts: They’ll come up with a certain theme, like birds, and the guests hunt for art depicting birds across the ship.

R Which are your go-to ports when you’re on the hunt for artistic inspiration?

SHS Amsterdam — you could spend days at the Rijksmuseum and not see it all. There are also some amazing smaller galleries in Venice, hidden gems that completely surprise you as you wander through the alleyways.

Sarah Hall Smith

With a background in art curation for high-end hotels and restaurants, Atlanta-based Saral Hall Smith was brought on board as a consultant for Norwegian Cruise Line in 2014. Six years later, she became the first-ever in-house art director for Norwegian, Regent Seven Seas and Oceania Cruises, curating the art collections for all three brands.

PHOTOS: NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE HOLDINGS LTD.