IT was commissioned in 1940 as a morale booster in the depths of war and paints a picture of the hard work of Clyde shipbuilders.
Riveters by Stanley Spencer is one of three paintings commissioned and show workers at the Lithgow yard in Port Glasgow hastily assembling merchant ships to boost Britain’s naval fleet during the Second World War.
It shows two men applying anti-corrosion paint to two completed crow’s nests while a gang of six men fit temporary bolts to the steel masts and line up the rivet holes.
In a letter to Daphne Charlton in May 1940, Spencer describes the workmen on his arrival at the yard: “There is something in the appearance & size & character of these shipbuilding chiefs. They look really good in their overcoats flapping open as they walk about from one part of the yard to another & wearing the assertive bowler hat.”
The painting will now form a centrepiece of a major new exhibition about the history of ocean liners which opens at the V&A museum in London next year.
The exhibition will detail the history of cruise liners from 1850 to the rise of air travel and the maiden voyage of the Queen Elizabeth 2 in 1969, the last liner built at John Brown’s in Clydebank.
It will show their promotion, engineering, style and the lifestyle offered on board, as well as their influence on pop culture and other aspects of design.
Also included is the largest remaining panel fragment from the first-class lounge of the Titanic which will return to the UK for the first time since the doomed ship sailed from Southampton in 1912.
It will be one of more than 250 objects, including paintings, sculptures and ship models, that will go on display at the V&A’s Ocean Liners: Speed & Style exhibition next year.
The wooden panel, which comes from where the Titanic broke in half as it sank, was found floating on the surface of the Atlantic after the sinking on April 14.
There will be a Cartier tiara owned by Lady Marguerite Allan, recovered from the sunk John Brown-built Lusitania in 1915, where two of her daughters drowned after the liner was struck by a German torpedo.
Also on show will be a 26ft model of Clydebank-built Queen Elizabeth from 1948 and furniture from sister ship the Queen Mary. Marlene Dietrich’s Dior suit worn on the latter ship in 1950 and a Lucien Lelong couture gown worn for the maiden voyage of the Normandie in 1935 will be shown, along with a model of a quadruple tandem engine, designed by Walter Brock and made by David Carlaw for the Denny Brothers yard in Dumbarton in 1887.
Tristram Hunt, director of the V&A, said: “We wanted to capture this fascinating topic from the design to the engineering and human stories and bring it to life as only the V&A can.
“It will be the first ever exhibition to explore the design and cultural impact of the ocean liners on an international scale and it will cover all aspects of ship design, from the engineering, architecture and interiors to the fashion and lifestyles aboard.
“It will tell a compelling story of empire, trade, immigration, national rivalry, technology, fashion and social class.
Ocean Liners: Speed &Style will run from which has been co-organised by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, runs from February 3 to June 10, 2018.
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