In Muma, portrait of liner lines in art messengers

Le Havre (Seine-Maritime). After a stopover in Nantes, the exhibition “Package 1913-1942” threw anchor at Muma (Museum of Modern Art André-Malraux) whose setting magnifies the story of the adventure of the great transatlantics. The period chosen runs from February 1913, which marked the discovery by the American public of the French avant-garde on the occasion of the Armory Show in New York, to February 1942, when the liner Normandyalready stripped of part of its sumptuous 4,900 sets, burns and sets in the port of the same city. This legendary building is the red thread of the course which presents the life of these giants, from the shipyards of Penhoët, in Saint-Nazaire, to the docking on the background of skyline New York.

Adeline Collange-Perugi, head of ancient art collections at the Nantes arts museum, and Clémence Poivet-Ducroix, conservation attaché at Muma and previously secretary general of French Lines & Companies, the public establishment which preserves and enhances the historical heritage of the General Maritime Company and the Société Nationale Corse-Méditerranée, Co-Commissionaires, worked for three years on this exhibition. For them and Sophie Lévy, then director of the Nantes Arts Museum and on the initiative of the project, there was no question of sticking to the sociology of these floating worlds. The purpose was to show linen in art and art in liners.

The 180 works presented come from many museums and private collections from France but also from the United States, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Italy. The influence of the industrial aesthetics of liners on contemporary art is revealed in all areas: architecture and decoration with the House E-1027 (board of Living architecturewinter 1929) and the Swivel drawer (1926-1929) by Eileen Gray or the Pichet Normandy (1935) by Peter Müller-Munk; painting with Fatering Paris (1921-1922, [voir ill.]) of Charles Demuth, White magic (1926) by Georges Malkine or Port. Opus 2 (1926) by Victor Servranckx; poster and advertising edition with The pergola casino in Saint-Jean de Luz (1928) by Robert Mallet-Stevens or Holland-America Line, Spring 1929 (1928) by Am Cassandre. Photography is beautifully represented: evidenced by Flood of “Normandy” in dryard, Saint-Nazaire (1936) by François Tuefferd or Inaugural trip to the liner “Normandy”, fireplace (1935) by Roger Schall.

The commissioners have not forgotten the place of art inside the boats and show reduced versions of Jean Dunand’s decorations for Normandy. But passengers could also draw inspiration from their trip on board, like Raoul Dufy drawing ” Queen Mary “, September 19, 1937. By boat, Blaise Cendrars wrote the poem “Cabin no 6” (Road leaves, I. Formose1924) and, during the inaugural trip of the NormandyJeanne Lanvin presented a fashion show.