Liners 1913-1942. A transatlantic aesthetic

The exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes is remarkably well staged, with superb works of art to discover. It is therefore well worth a visit, but it should be pointed out that those expecting to admire many of the works that once adorned the great liners that have now disappeared will be a little disappointed. The exhibition does feature lacquer panels by Dunand, an eglomised glass by Champigneulle on a board by Jean Dupas, and a technically complex panel in preparation for a lacquer work by Gaston Priou (ill. 1), but the main focus is elsewhere. This is more an exhibition about the representation of ships and Atlantic crossings, mainly through posters, paintings and photographs, than an exhibition about their decoration.

1. Gaston Priou (1881-1965)
Study for a decorative lacquer work for a luxury flat
apartment, liner Normandie, c. 1930
Plaster, cement, water-based paint, bronzine, plywood - 155.5 x 225.5 cm
Saint-Nazaire, Saint-Nazaire Agglomération Tourisme-Écomusée collection
Photo: Didier Rykner

See the image in its page

That said, visitors will learn a great deal. First of all, and perhaps somewhat contrary to what the curators have said, the border between Art Deco and so-called ‘modern’ art is particularly blurred. In fact, even Fernand Léger, whose beautiful painting The Great Tugboat (ill. 2) is on show, can just as easily be considered an Art Deco work as an avant-garde one. What we see on the walls has even less to do with abstraction, which is also invoked. Everything is figurative, almost everything is stylised, and everything evokes the 1930s, even the later works from the 1940s. Art Deco continued well beyond these dates, and as late as the 1950s, artists who had been active in the preceding decades continued to produce works that were fully in keeping with this stylistic trend.

2. Fernand Léger (1881-1955)
The Great Tug, 1920
Oil on canvas - 96.5 x 130 cm
Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national…