Preface —
Contents — Preface 5 Introduction 6 Arrival and Departure 7 The Steamship Lines and their Routes 8 Developments in Passenger Ship Design 9 The Passengers 11 The Messages 16 The Art Work 19
— T H E P O S TC AR D S 2 5 Steamships before 1900 26 Antonio Lopez. Tuck postcard featuring this 1900 liner of the Cia Transatlantica, built 1891, in a dramatic portrait by Justo Ruiz Luna.
Bridging the Centuries 41 1900-1910 57 The Second Decade 84 The 1920s 99 Into the 1930s 118 The 1940s 135 The Last Liners 140
— The Artists 151 Bibliography 156 References and Sources 156 Acknowledgements 157 Collecting Postcards 158 Index 159
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his book is about ships and paintings – in particular, it shows the development of the passenger liner through contemporary paintings issued as postcards. I have tried to sketch the development of the liner – its design, routes, the passengers it carried – from 1880 to about 1980, and the postcards featured here reflect some of the enormous changes that took place during this time – in technology and trade, politics, society, in design and advertising, and in art. There are already many fine books available about this period of maritime history, and so the information about shipping given in these pages serves really to set the scene for the pictures themselves. Here, the artist’s use of colour instils each scene with more
T
imagination and a greater sense of atmosphere than a photograph might allow, and the result is a lively and personal view of the life and times of the great liners. Although many of the ships depicted in these pages are well documented, this is not the case with most of the artists who painted them. Comparatively few are mentioned in art directories, and when they are, information is often lacking or uncertain. It seems unjust that these artists and illustrators who recorded maritime history and have given so much pleasure by their paintings should simply be forgotten. I hope this book will rectify this omission to some extent, for I believe that many of the facts about them appear here for the first time in a publication of this nature.
he expansion of the United States and the burgeoning empires of the European colonial powers together led to an unprecedented growth of traffic in people and goods. The fire of development which had roared across North America in the second half of the nineteenth century still required feeding with manpower, and there was no shortage of volunteers from Europe willing to take their chance and be tossed into the unknown. For millions, life could not be much worse: they rushed to emigrate to America. But people were also flocking to the new colonies, and in the last decades of the century shipping companies blossomed. Attracted by the seemingly endless flood of migrants crossing the Atlantic, no fewer than eighteen new companies came into being during the 1880s to join the stalwarts in this trade such as Cunard, Red Star, White Star and Hamburg-Amerika. During this decade, well-established lines opened new routes – for example, Messageries Maritimes to Australia, Anchor Line to Calcutta, Holland America to Brazil and the River Plate, Norddeutscher Lloyd to the Far East – and one after another new companies were formed to begin services to other destinations. There was not a continent that did not receive the attention of an array of major shipping lines, and even small companies began to spread their wings, starting new initiatives and offering foreign cruises to locations such as the Norwegian fjords. Governments awarded special contracts for the carriage of mail to their outposts and the transportation of troops to defend them. Shipping lines began to merge services to defeat competition, and groups of lines formed alliances to protect their profitable trading interests. It was a period of immense shipping activity. All over the world, it seemed, settlements were springing up and spreading, demanding transport services for the increasing number of people living in them. Such services could only be provided by the steamship companies which had themselves helped to establish these new towns and cities. Governments needed to safeguard their new possessions with soldiers and administrators and bolster the colonial
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The Steamship Lines and their Routes —
By the time the Swedish American Line was formed, about a fifth of all Swedes lived in the USA. Drottningholm, shown here, helped carry the last waves of emigrants in the 1920s on a service that was increasingly popular in both directions. (Printers: Isacson)
presence with traders, planters, teachers and missionaries. Increasingly, wives and families accompanied or followed them, and there were still exciting developments like the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand in Transvaal in 1886 that drew adventurers by the thousand. Shipowners scheduled regular sailings to cater for the comings and goings to these distant lands. Before the end of the century, many of the
American immigrants who had been packed into ships like so much cattle had now made good – very good – and wanted to return to their original European homelands for visits. Their new wealth gave them expectations, and the shipping lines vied with each other to offer ever grander accommodation and bring into play the newest innovations of the age in ever larger and faster ships. In the aftermath of the Titanic and the
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Great War, shipowners began replacing their losses with vessels of a modest scale, but as the 1920s developed, they turned once again to building increasingly luxurious liners. In 1920 the cartoonist Paul Iribe had drawn an aeroplane linking Paris and New York with the words ‘Madame, the aeroplane waits,’ but apart from an eccentric few, nobody took the threat seriously. Instead, from now on into the 1930s, passengers enjoyed the very best of travel by sea. It had become far more than just a means of transporting people from one place to another for business or to service the colonies: the glamour and sumptuous living offered by the new big transatlantic liners attracted the rich and the famous, and the five-day crossing became de rigueur for the beautiful people. The arrival at a transatlantic port of a great liner with its complement of stars became the most newsworthy event, recorded for a wide-eyed public by the news films and magazines. Cruising, which had hitherto been offered by a few lines, now became the focus for serious advertising as the attraction of sea travel was presented by more and more companies to a growing section of the public able to afford the exciting adventures that were offered. For the first time, it was becoming available to the middle classes. However, one reason for more liners offering cruises was that the Depression was taking its toll, and in the early 1930s, on the North Atlantic particularly, there were too many ships. Lines were forced to unite or die, and two of the biggest casualties were White Star, which had to merge with Cunard, and the Red Star Line, which disappeared altogether. But still the liners continued to be built for Europe’s colonial routes, as well as larger, faster and more luxurious transatlantic superliners, as if their supremacy was inviolable. Although Imperial Airways and other airlines such as PanAm and KLM were steadily expanding their routes, the thought of a serious threat to sea travel was still not believed feasible. No, it seemed as if the steamship was the only way to go. In fact, even though passenger flights from Europe to Australia
had operated since 1935 and PanAm had conquered the Pacific in 1936, in a paper the following year experts still stated that the threat of the airliner could be seen off by increasing liners’ speeds by a few knots, and that the ship would always be the favoured choice of those who had to travel on business or pleasure. Two years later the first transatlantic passenger flights began. And then came the Second World War. Once again, the loss of liners was enormous: but what was also lost during the war years was the hold the colonial countries had on their empires. The rebuilding of the devastated fleets after the war produced ships that soon had nowhere to go. The independence of Indonesia in 1945 and India in 1947 set off a domino effect all over the world: within a few years, the flow of passengers to run the former colonies had all but stopped. There was, it is true, a new wave of emigrants eager to start afresh in countries like Australia, but their transportation required a different kind of ship. And those who still had a role to play in the former colonies now travelled by airliner, for the war had seen the dramatic development of the aeroplane. By 1960, as the jet fleets developed, it seemed that the only people who travelled by sea were the few with money and time on their hands. In addition, the arrival of the container ship, with its huge freight capacity, snatched away the cargo-carrying role of the passenger liners. With the loss of their traditional passengers and of their secondary role as cargo carriers, many liners were retired prematurely, sold for conversion into car ferries or hotels, adapted for the migrant trade, or sent for scrap. The best were rerouted from their scheduled services and put on cruises. One by one the shipping lines disappeared. But just as the last scheduled liner sailed into the sunset, a new breed of ship appeared over the horizon, a ship built to meet the growing demand for travel from an increasingly affluent and adventurous public in the western world. The cruise industry was reborn.
Developments in Passenger Ship Design —
A painting by Pieter Schipperus shows Spaarndam, the former Arabic (1881), White Star’s first steel-hulled ship and probably the first transatlantic liner with electricity throughout, bought by HAL in 1890. Shipowners still thought it best to rig their steamships for sail – just in case.
lthough the first deep-sea passenger steamship, the Great Western, was built as long ago as 1837, sail continued as a major source of propulsion for ships for another fifty years. Some of the great sailing ships were not built until the 1860s – the Cutty Sark made her first voyage in 1870, the year after the
A
Suez Canal opened – and it was not until the 1880s that steam really took over. Well into the 1890s contemporary pictures show steamers rigged with sail, and it was only in 1903 that the Royal Navy ended sail-drill (a 1909 illustration in The Graphic depicted a naval vessel deploying sail, and there are much later reports of such sightings). Right
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up to the eve of the First World War, some new merchant ships were shown in paintings as fitted with crossyards, their owners evidently still uncertain about the reliability of steam. But in spite of the cautious retention of sail by many steamships, their development in the 1880s and 1890s continued apace. On the North Atlantic, which led the way in passenger ship evolution, each new liner seemed to surpass the last in size and speed. Both in their passenger facilities and in external appearance, one new idea followed another in quick succession – the first three-funnelled liner appeared in 1881, and so did the first to have electricity throughout; then came the first with twin screws; the first over 10,000 tons* – with en suite rooms – with four funnels – the first to use wireless! All this, before 1900. The clipper bow with its figurehead had almost disappeared, and the new liners, with their straight stems, counter sterns and raked masts and funnels, had an air of purpose about them which matched the self-confidence of the age. But one feature from the time of sail was carried into the twentieth century, and that was the fourmaster: many continued to be built in the first decade, and ships of the Danish East Asiatic and Bibby lines had four masts right up to the Second World War. The Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse of 1897, with her speed, size, four funnels and baroque revival interior, was undoubtedly the ship of the era. From 1900 there was immense competition to improve on her. Winter gardens, à la carte dining and electric lifts were just some of the refinements that featured in the liners as they fought to attract an increasingly demanding clientele, particularly the newly wealthy of America. On the transatlantic run, standards of luxury were set by the Amerika in 1905 and in 1907 by the Lusitania and Mauretania. The great liners of this period boasted public rooms that were extraordinarily ornate, echoing *gross registered tons
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– A Postcard History of the Passenger Liner –
Empress of Japan (1891) • Br • CANADIAN PACIFIC • N PACIFIC
Innamincka (1890) • Aus • ADELAIDE SS CO • AUSTRALIAN COASTAL
One of three fast ships, the last mail steamers to have clipper bow and bowsprit – her figurehead of a Japanese dragon is now in Vancouver. They inaugurated the line’s service to Japan, four years after the trans-Canada railway link to Vancouver was established. The painting by Fred Pansing is for Tuck.
Simple painting by an unknown hand of an unlucky ship, named after an aboriginal tribe. The artwork appears very amateur, yet the card was printed in Germany. Apart from engine and crew trouble, Innamincka developed leaks, hit a rock, ran aground, and was ultimately sunk in Manila Bay in 1941, after several changes of owner.
Marie-Henriette (1893) • Bel • BELGIAN STATE • ENGLISH CHANNEL
Scot (1891) • Br • UNION LINE • S AFRICA
These cross-Channel paddle steamers were very fast – about 21 knots – and this free-flowing painting by Paul Jean Clays shows what a rough ride some crossings could be, though not, apparently, on this occasion.
The discovery of gold in the Transvaal in 1886 triggered immense interest in South Africa, and this record-breaking ship was built to win custom from fierce rivals, Castle Line. This card was produced in 1893, when Scot created a transit time that was unbeaten for over forty years. Union and Castle merged in 1900.
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– Steamships Before 1900 –
Cameroon River (c1893) • Ger • WOERMANN LINE • AFRICA
Cameroon River (c1893) • Ger • WOERMANN LINE • AFRICA
One of the excellent Bohrdt/Meissner & Buch products, showing a small steamer, rigged with sail, on the Cameroon River. The line had about ten small ships of similar tonnage, of which Jeanette Woermann (1893) was one. This wonderfully loose painting includes a distinctive feature of Bohrdt’s work, the several layers of paint in the smoke.
A total contrast to the Bohrdt painting, but showing the same class of steamer on the Cameroon River. This early card by Metz Bros offers a fascinating glimpse of the old colonial town of Douala.
Advertising card (c1899) • Ger • ARGO LINE • NORTH SEA
Crefeld class (1895) • Ger • NORDDEUTSCHER LLOYD • S AMERICA
Themistokles von Eckenbrecher depicts a ship of this line, flying the flag of Bremen at her foremast, on a card advertising the Bremen–London/Hull route. This service was much used by Jewish emigrants, many of whom had travelled from eastern Europe, and now wanted either to settle in Britain or go on to America. (Printers: Jöntzen)
Typical colouring of blues, greys and browns by von Eckenbrecher in his painting of the Crefeld class of ship, of which four were built. They carried 32 second class passengers and over 1,000 third class in the ’tween decks. Their routes varied. An example of a ‘tear-out’ card. (Printers: Jöntzen)
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Aquitania (1914) • Br • WAR CARD
Lepanto (1915) • Br • WAR CARD
‘Escorted by destroyers,’ a painting by Burnell Poole of the Cunard liner, which was taken over by the Admiralty after only three peacetime voyages. She served as a troop transport in both world wars during which she carried tens of thousands of troops.
Everett’s painting of the Wilson liner for the Ministry of Information is on a YMCA card. Dazzle painting was invented by fellow artist, Norman Wilkinson, and applied to freighters, liners and warships. It was believed that seen through a periscope, it was difficult to delineate ships camouflaged in this way, or even tell in which direction they were steaming.
König Albert (1915) • Ger • WAR CARD
Statendam (1917) • Du • HOLLAND AMERICA • N ATLANTIC
This unusual card, issued by Austrian authorities, shows the Norddeutscher Lloyd liner König Albert (1899). Kircher’s painting shows an incident in 1915 when the liner, interned in Genoa since the outbreak of war, was taken into Cattaro by the Italians. She was then fitted out for service as a hospital ship and renamed Ferdinando Palasciano. She was never returned to Germany.
With his tell-tale depiction of smoke, Fred Pansing shows this liner as she should have been – but never was. While being built by Harland & Wolff in Belfast, she was taken over by the British government for trooping, renamed Justicia, and given to White Star to operate. But she was sunk off Ireland in 1918: so this postcard of her was never required. (Printers: Van Leer)
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– The Second Decade –
Stavangerfjord (1918) • Nor • NORWEGIAN AMERICA • N ATLANTIC
Batavier IV (1903) • Du • BATAVIER LINE • ENGLISH CHANNEL
In wartime, neutrals have to do everything to save themselves from attack. Nationality and name are clearly displayed, as shown here by Burgess. Even though many neutral ships were sunk in the First World War, people who had to travel preferred the relative safety they offered. (Publishers: Cammell Laird)
A highly individual presentation by Bart van der Leck which has often been used to illustrate good advertising practice. For a year or two before the art movement De Stijl was formed in 1917, van der Leck had been producing posters for Batavier in the style which was to become the group’s own. This is the most famous of them.
Stockholm (1915) • Swe •
Semiramis (1919) • It • LLOYD TRIESTINO • MEDITERRANEAN
SWEDISH AMERICAN
•
N ATLANTIC
Swedish American started transatlantic operations in 1915 with Stockholm, the former Holland America Potsdam (1900). At the time, Sweden was unable to build such a liner, and British yards were otherwise occupied. The acquisition was, perhaps, fortunate, for HAL imagined Statendam would join them shortly. Attractive unsigned advertisement card. (Printers: Isacson)
In 1919 Lloyd Austriaco became Lloyd Triestino and the Austrian-flag ships that survived the war were transferred, along with their colours. Semiramis was built in 1895 for the Trieste–Alexandria service, and this rather vivid painting by Edler shows her on her new Constantinople run. (Printers: Mastrolouaodo)
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– A Postcard History of the Passenger Liner –
Esperance Bay (1922) • Br • ABERDEEN & COMMONWEALTH • AUSTRALIA
ABOVE.
As shown elsewhere, occasionally one particular incident was the subject of a painting. Charles Bryant here depicts the liner at the Silver Jubilee Royal Naval Review at Spithead, 1935. At such events ships from the Merchant Navy, as well as foreign-flag vessels, were invited to take part. (Printers: Howard, Jones, Roberts & Leete)
Manhattan (1932) • US • UNITED STATES LINES
•
N ATLANTIC
‘The world’s fastest cabin ships,’ says the back of the card, referring to Manhattan and sister-ship Washington, and USL’s first homebuilt liners of over 20,000 tons. But her career was brief, and after the Second World War she was laid up. Worden Wood’s painting shows the liner against the Manhattan skyline, appropriately enough. LEFT.
Advertising card (c1930) • Br • ABERDEEN & COMMONWEALTH
•
AUSTRALIA
Ed Kealey’s card shows one of the five Moreton Bay-class steamers built 1921/2 for the Australian government (Commonwealth Government Line), each to carry 720 emigrants. It was not a particularly happy venture, and the ships were sold to White Star in 1928 to become Aberdeen & Commonwealth. In 1933 Shaw Savill and P&O jointly bought them, to continue operating under the same name.
Bloemfontein (1934) • Du • VNS (HOLLAND AFRICA LINE) • S & E AFRICA A new design of the time was the curved Maierform bow, seen in this picture by John Allcot of Bloemfontein, Holland Africa’s first liner on this service. Its purpose was to give improved performance for less fuel, but it did not gain widespread application.
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– Into the 1930s – BELOW.
LEFT.
Nordbornholm (1929) OSTBORNHOLM LINE
•
•
Dan
Prins Olav (1925) • Nor •
•
COASTAL
NORDENFJELDSKE
The second of these Scandinavian cards, by Mogens Ege, is a good example of a poster reduced to postcard format, showing the route served and company details. (Printers: Cato)
•
CRUISING
King Edward VII’s Royal Yacht Alexandra (1907) was bought in 1925 and converted into a cruising liner to carry 100 passengers. before further alterations in 1937 increased her capacity. She was sunk in 1940. Rodmell painted for the line in the 1930s.
BELOW CENTRE.
Advertising card (c1935) • Dan •
BELOW.
DET FORENDE DAMPSKIBS SELSKAB
Advertising card (1936) • Swe • GOTEBORG-
•
NORTH SEA
FREDERIKSHAVN
Wonderful DFDS postcard, but unsigned and with no indication of date. As in this case, so many shipping company or printers’ records have been lost or destroyed that the collector can experience great difficulty in identifying details such as these. (Printers: Andreasen & Lachmann)
Even the ferry linking these two cities warranted its own postcard. Kronprinsessan Ingrid (1936), artist unknown, offered a first class but cheap restaurant, a verandah café and so on, and for those who weren’t sure where they were going, the card marked the route with a bold red line. (Printers: Wezäta)
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•
SWEDEN–DENMARK
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Bohème (1968) • Ger • COMMODORE CRUISE LINE • CRUISING
Shin Sakura Maru (1972) • Jap • MITSUI-OSK • TRADE SHIP/CRUISING
A design in which the ship is truncated, giving an emphasis on the people who might be travelling on her. Commodore started in 1966, running from Miami and other southern ports to the Caribbean. The funnel markings refer to owners Olof Wallenius: the ship was registered at Bremerhaven. Artist is unknown.
This rather humorous cartoon-style illustration by Ryohei Yanagihara is as far removed from the artistic masterpieces of early in the century as are both the design of the ship and her use. Shin Sakura Maru was built essentially for use as a floating trade fair, but then converted for cruising.
Prinsendam (1973) • Du • HOLLAND AMERICA • CRUISING
Border (1987) • SA • UNICORN SHIPPING • S AFRICAN COASTAL
This major transatlantic line’s first ship to be built solely for cruising. Reint de Jonge’s painting shows her in Far Eastern waters where she began her brief career, as she was destroyed by fire off Alaska in 1980. (Printers: Euro Color)
The occasional postcard was still produced by shipping lines to advertise their vessels, whatever their function. The artist John Churchill Simpson shows Border, a 1980 French-built roll-on roll-off ship bought by Unicorn in 1987. She had accommodation for up to ten passengers and their cars. (Printers: Edson)
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– The Artists –
The Artists —
The work of some 190 named artists is featured in this book, and brief notes on over 160 of them appear below. Very few are well known and only a small number appear in art reference books, often with conflicting dates. Dating is a minefield, but those noted here are the result of wide consultation, cross-referencing and – in England – research at numerous register offices, and are thought to be correct at time of publication. The list is believed to be the largest so far published on marine artists whose work was produced as postcards. There still remain, nevertheless, a number of artists about whom information has not been found. Some readers of the first edition asked why dates and places of birth or death given for some wellknown artists differ from other published sources. This is because research has included examination of the relative birth/death certificates.
— d’Alesi, Frederic Hugo (1849–1906) is well known for his travel posters, particularly those for the French railway company PLM. In 1900 he exhibited the Mareorama, an early film experience, in which he painted the background to a simulated sea voyage. He was one of the earliest artists whose work was used for postcards. The racing driver Jean Alesi is a descendant. Allcot, John Charles (1888–1973), a Liverpoolborn artist who went to sea in his early years, settled in Sydney in 1912 and became a noted ship portraitist. He worked in oils and watercolours, and produced many paintings of sailing vessels as well as steamers. Alperiz, Nicolas Jiminez (1865–1928) was a Seville-based artist who painted a wide range of subjects, including marines. His favoured medium was watercolour. Anderson, Douglas Napier (1884–1952) worked for the Glasgow publishers McCorquodale in his early years, where he produced work for Anchor Line, mainly in watercolour. He was also a fashion artist and painted travel posters and landscapes. His son, Douglas N Anderson, is the well-known military artist. d’Argence, Eugène (1853–1920) was made Peintre de la Marine in 1890. Like a number of French
artists, he was attracted by the Mediterranean littoral and painted both African and European coastal scenes. He often worked in pastels. Aylward, William James (1875–1956) trained as an artist in Chicago and spent some time at sea. At the beginning of his career he was an illustrator for magazines such as Harper’s, but also wrote articles on the sea. He worked in watercolours, oils and pastels, and his favourite subjects were to do with the sea. In the First World War he was one of a small group of US war artists. Bannister, Albert Francis Derek (1899–1968) was born in Kent and worked for Salmon from 1930 to 1956. Although he painted many ship portraits, he was also a well-known aircraft artist. Bearman, Edward W (1916–1992). This American artist was an engineer by training but had an active interest in painting, where his shipping subjects were mostly transatlantic liners. Bergen, Claus (1885–1964) was one of the marine artists who worked for Kaiser Wilhelm II. He made many sea journeys, including transatlantic, and seemed to be particularly fond of travel by U-boat. A war artist in the First World War, he was at the Battle of the Skagerrak (Jutland). His late work was essentially historical in theme, such as the painting of the Victory he presented to the British Admiralty in 1963. He worked in both oils and watercolours. Birchall, William Minshall (1884-1940), an American artist who favoured watercolours, drew and painted both steamers and sailing ships in settings that were often around the coast of England, where he spent much of his life. Some of his work appeared for the Aberdeen Line. Black, Algernon Herbert (1894–1922). Based in London, in his short life he served as a war artist in the First World War when his subjects were principally aircraft. His shipping pictures are few, and he seems to have just begun to produce promising work for the Orient Line when he died at the early age of twenty-seven of pneumonia. He and Montague Black were brothers. Black, Montague Birrell (1884–1964), Algernon’s elder brother, was born in London on 29 March 1884. He is particularly associated with the White Star Line, for which he painted ship portraits and posters. However, he was also an illustrator of other subjects, including railways. He served as a naval and military artist, and acted as art war correspondent for a Canadian newspaper in the Second World War. Bock, Adolf (1890–1968) painted marines with the experience of life at sea, having served on the Imperial Yacht and also in the German Navy in the First World War. He lived and painted for much of his life in Finland, and also in Sweden, where he died. Bohrdt, Hans (1857–1945) was self-taught, yet first exhibited at the age of twenty-three. He was one of the marine artists at the German court and a friend of Kaiser Wilhelm II. A keen seaman, he
travelled widely abroad, often accompanying the Kaiser, and his paintings reveal a deep understanding of ships and the sea. His early work is particularly sensitive in colour and composition. Most of his steamship paintings were for Hamburg-Amerika Line. Bohrdt was made an honorary professor for his work. Bonestell, Chesley (1888–1986) has been called the Father of modern Space Art, and was a member of the American Society of Illustrators’ Hall of Fame. He worked in architecture, advertising and films, and completed a series of paintings for Canadian Pacific. Brangwyn, Frank (1867–1956) is well known for his many shipping and industrial scenes. He worked in oil and watercolour and is said to have painted his way round the world. Brangwyn, who was knighted in 1941, produced posters for various shipping companies, including UnionCastle and Orient, and was scathing about the perception that art was vulgarised by being associated with commerce. Breede, Alexander (1892–1971), American artist and illustrator, specialised in coastal scenes, often showing the battle between the elements and rocky shores. He was also known for his depictions of sailing ships. His favoured medium was oils. Brempt, Paul van (?dates) produced a series of paintings for the Cie Belge Maritime du Congo in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Many of these were African coastal and port scenes, which included some that were particularly evocative in capturing the essence of Africa. No details have been found of this artist, in spite of help given by CMB, his printers Stockmans, and other agencies. Brenet, Albert (1903–2005) was made a Peintre de la Marine in 1936. This well-travelled centenarian was one of the most distinguished of French marine artists, and was also made official painter to the French Air Force and Army. His lively style resulted in commissions from all the major French lines, beginning with Chargeurs. He is a member of the Légion d’Honneur. Brindle, Ewart Melbourne (1904–95), a California-based artist and illustrator who was born in Australia, produced work for a variety of magazines and designed stamps for the US Postal Service. His work is regarded as being particularly strong on detail, and he is best known for his paintings of cars. Brown, Samuel John Milton (1873–1963) came from a family associated with the sea and worked in Liverpool. He was particularly keen on sailing ships, which often appear in his work, and made a number of voyages. His ship portraits may often be recognised by a soft, almost misty, touch. Not surprisingly, they were mostly of Liverpool ships. Bryant, Charles David Jones (1883–1937), born in Sydney, moved to England in 1908 where he studied with leading painters of the time,
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including the poster artist John Hassall. He soon received favourable reviews for his work, was a popular artist, and became president of the London Sketch Club. He was a war artist during the First World War. Burgess, Arthur James Wetherall (1879–1957) moved to London from Australia early in his career and became a notable marine artist, principally in oils. He was an illustrator for The Graphic, Sphere, and the Illustrated London News. He was art editor of Brassey’s Naval & Shipping Annual, became vice president of the Royal Society of Marine Artists, and official Naval artist for the Australian government. The magazine The Artist wrote in 1940 that ‘few can paint the sea so well as Arthur Burgess.’ Bylitiplis, W S (?dates), who was active in the 1920s, was a poster artist who produced advertisements for shipping lines, major stores and railway companies. His strength seems to lie in his depiction of people in various situations. Card, Stephen J (b1952) was born in Bermuda. His early interest in ships led to a career at sea, where he obtained his first command in 1982. Meanwhile, his self-taught hobby of oil painting resulted in a successful exhibition of his work in 1984, and he has since concentrated on marine art full-time. Holland America, Costa and Cunard are three lines with which his work is particularly associated: he was commissioned to complete a series of thirty paintings for the Queen Mary 2. Carré, Léon (1882–1942), an Algiers-based Frenchman, was well known for his middle eastern and North African scenes, which he used to good effect in advertising material for shipping lines. Cassiers, Henri (1858–1944) was one of the greatest of shipping poster artists. The Belgian trained as an architect, but soon turned to painting full-time, along with engraving and illustrating. His favourite medium was watercolour, and his paintings of ships and coastal scenes varied from softly coloured impressionism to bold, bright, firmly drawn pictures, often including local folk. His work was highly regarded in Britain when marine advertising had yet to make a mark, and many of his posters for Red Star Line are still considered classics. Chapelet, Roger (1903–1995), a keen sailor, served in the French Navy during the Second World War. His work has a bold straightforwardness and he was not afraid to show his subjects in a somewhat distressed state when he felt that was the reality of the situation. He was appointed Peintre de la Marine in 1936 and became president of the Académie de Marine in 1974. Church, Bernard Walter (1906–1941) worked for Salmon as an illustrator from 1934 to 1939, when he joined the RNVR, where he won the DSC during the Second World War. His work is instilled with brightness and life, and it was a tragedy that he should die in the war when his