The collective memory has preserved the memory of these luxurious vessels from the interwar period, the most famous of which was the Normandie, a masterpiece of naval technology and a true temple of the Art Deco style. The exhibition of course evokes this dimension with decorative elements from Normandy due to Jean Dunand or Paul Iribe. But the most interesting thing is not there. The exhibition brilliantly demonstrates the particular role that ocean liners played in the development of modern aesthetics in fields such as painting, photography and architecture.
The influence of the liner style
The first half of the 20th century was a time when fascination with machines invaded all the arts. But are there more beautiful machines than ocean liners? Their tapered shape, the lines drawn by the stem, the funnels or the rows of portholes lend themselves perfectly to a graphic research halfway between figuration and abstraction. The exhibition offers magnificent paintings by Fernand Léger, Albert Gleizes and even an artist bordering on naive art, Jules Lefranc. We also see sumptuous photos by Walker Evans and André Kertész but also lesser-known photographers who worked for the shipyards such as Jean Moral, Roger Schall or François Tuefferd.
In terms of architecture, the exhibition highlights architect Le Corbusier's fascination with ocean liners in which he saw a model of constructive rationality and an element of his quest to create what he called “machines for living. » Le Corbusier was not the only one to refer to ocean liners in his constructions. We can also cite Pierre Patout, Geoges-Henri Pingusson and Robert Mallet-Stevens.
1913-1942, a short period
Until the First World War, the activity of liners focused on the transport of migrants between Europe and New York. But the United States then adopted a restrictive immigration policy, which led shipowners to turn to another, much more privileged clientele, offering them unprecedented comfort. As for 1942 is when the Normandie was destroyed by fire in New York Harbor. The interwar period was therefore a golden age of historical dramas. The exhibition marks it at the opening with a famous photograph of a migrant ship signed by Alfred Stieglitz. And, at the end, with a moving image of two little girls in the porthole of the Saint-Louis liner. This ship transported Jewish families seeking to escape Nazism but who were refused by the countries of North America and Latin America and had to return to Europe in 1939. Liners were not only places for carefree vacations.
