The Postcard
A postally unused postcard, on the back of which is printed:
'Andreas Feininger
The Queen Elizabeth and the
Chrysler Building/New York 1958/
Life Magazine Time Warner Inc. 1988
Nouvelles Images S.A. Éditeurs 1988/
45700 Lombreuil - France/
offset printed in France'
Andreas Feininger
Andreas Bernhard Lyonel Feininger, who was born on the 27th. December 1906, was an American photographer and a writer on photographic technique. He was noted for his dynamic black-and-white scenes of Manhattan, and for studies of the structures of natural objects.
-- Andreas Feininger - The Early Years
Feininger was born in Paris, France, the eldest son of Julia Berg, a German Jew, and the American painter and art educator Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956).
His paternal grandparents were the German violinist Karl Feininger (1844–1922) and the American singer Elizabeth Feininger (née Lutz), who was also of German descent.
His younger brother was the painter and photographer T. Lux Feininger (1910–2011).
In 1908 the Feininger family moved to Berlin, and in 1919 to Weimar, where Lyonel Feininger took up the post of Master of the Printing Workshop at the newly formed Bauhaus art school.
Andreas left school at 16 in order to study at the Bauhaus; he graduated as a cabinetmaker in April 1925. Afterwards he studied architecture, initially at the Staatliche Bauschule Weimar (State Architectural College, Weimar) and later at the Staatliche Bauschule Zerbst.
Zerbst is a city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, about 20 km from Dessau, where the Bauhaus moved to in 1926. The Feininger family moved to Dessau with the Bauhaus.
In addition to continuing his architectural studies in Zerbst, Andreas developed an interest in photography and was given guidance by neighbour and Bauhaus teacher László Moholy-Nagy.
-- Feininger's Photographic Career
In 1936, Andreas gave up architecture and moved to Sweden, where he focused on photography. In advance of World War II, in 1939, Feininger immigrated to the U.S. where he established himself as a freelance photographer.
In 1943 he joined the staff of Life magazine, an association that lasted until 1962.
Feininger became famous for his photographs of New York. Other frequent subjects among his works were science and nature, as seen in bones, shells, plants, and minerals, in the images of which he often stressed their structure.
Rarely did he photograph people or make portraits.
Feininger wrote comprehensive manuals about photography, of which the best known is The Complete Photographer.
In the introduction to one of Feininger's books of photographs, Ralph Hattersley, the editor of the photography journal Infinity, described him as:
"One of the great architects who
helped create photography as
we know it today."
In 1966, the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) awarded Feininger its highest distinction, the Robert Leavitt Award.
In 1991, the International Center of Photography awarded Feininger the Infinity Lifetime Achievement Award.
-- The Death and Legacy of Andreas Feininger
Andreas died aged 92 in New York on the 18th. February 1999.
Today, Feininger's photographs are in the permanent collections of the Center for Creative Photography, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, London's Victoria and Albert Museum, and the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.
There are 19 examples of Feininger's work below.
The R.M.S. Queen Elizabeth
The R.M.S. Queen Elizabeth was an ocean liner operated by the Cunard Line. Along with the Queen Mary, she provided a weekly luxury liner service between Southampton and New York City via Cherbourg.
She was constructed in the mid-1930's by John Brown and Company at Clydebank, Scotland; the build was initially known as Hull 552. Launched on the 27th. September 1938, she was named in honour of Queen Elizabeth, then Queen Consort to King George VI, who became the Queen Mother in 1952.
With a design that improved upon that of the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth was a slightly larger ship, the largest passenger liner ever built at that time, and for 56 years thereafter. She also has the distinction of being the largest-ever riveted ship by gross tonnage.
She first entered service in February 1940 as a troopship in the Second World War, and it was not until October 1946 that she served in her intended role as an ocean liner.
With the decline in popularity of the transatlantic route, both ships were replaced by the smaller, more economical Queen Elizabeth 2 in 1969.
Queen Mary was retired from service on the 9th. December 1967, and was sold to the city of Long Beach, California.
Queen Elizabeth was sold to a succession of buyers, most of whom had unsuccessful plans for her. Finally Queen Elizabeth was sold to Hong Kong businessman Tung Chao Yung, who intended to convert her into a floating university cruise ship called Seawise University.
In 1972, whilst she was undergoing refurbishment in Hong Kong harbour, fire broke out aboard under unexplained circumstances, and the ship was capsized by the water used to fight the fire. The following year the wreck was deemed an obstruction to shipping in the area, and in 1974 and 1975 was partially scrapped where she lay.
The Building and Design of R.M.S. Queen Elizabeth
On the day R.M.S. Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage, Cunard's chairman, Sir Percy Bates, informed his ship designers, headed by George Paterson, that it was time to start designing the planned second ship. The official contract between Cunard and government financiers was signed on the 6th. October 1936.
The new ship improved upon the design of Queen Mary with a number of changes, including a reduction in the number of boilers to twelve instead of Queen Mary's twenty-four. This meant that the designers could discard one funnel and increase deck, cargo and passenger space. The two funnels were self-supporting and braced internally to give a cleaner-looking appearance.
With the forward well deck omitted, a more refined hull shape was achieved, and a sharper, raked bow was added for a third bow-anchor point. She was to be eleven feet longer and of 4,000 tons greater displacement than her older sister ship, Queen Mary.
Queen Elizabeth was built on slipway four at John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland. The interiors were designed by a team of artists headed by the architect George Grey Wornum. Cunard's plan was for the ship to be launched in September 1938, with fitting-out intended to be complete for the ship to enter service in the spring of 1940.
The Queen herself performed the launching ceremony on the 27th. September 1938. The liner started to slide into the water before Elizabeth could officially launch her, and acting sharply, she managed to smash a bottle of Australian red over the liner's bow just before it slid out of reach. The ship was then sent for fitting out.
It was announced that on the 23rd. August 1939 the King and Queen were to visit the ship and tour the engine room, and that the 24th. April 1940 was to be the proposed date of her maiden voyage. Due to the outbreak of the Second World War, these two events were postponed and Cunard's plans were shattered.
The Queen Elizabeth sat at the fitting-out dock at the shipyard in her Cunard colours until the 2nd. November 1939, when the Ministry of Shipping issued special licences to declare her seaworthy. On the 29th. December her engines were tested for the first time, running from 0900 to 1600 with the propellers disconnected to monitor her oil and steam operating temperatures and pressures.
Two months later Cunard received a letter from Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, ordering the ship to leave Clydeside as soon as possible and to 'Keep away from the British Isles as long as the order was in force'.
R.M.S. Queen Elizabeth and the Second World War
At the start of the Second World War, it was decided that the Queen Elizabeth was so vital to the war effort that she must not have her movements tracked by German spies operating in the Clydebank area. An elaborate ruse suggested to potential German observers was that she was sailing to Southampton to complete her fitting-out.
One factor that limited the ship's departure date was that there were only two spring tides that year that would see the water level high enough for the Queen Elizabeth to leave the Clydebank shipyard, and German intelligence were aware of this fact.
A minimal crew of four hundred were assigned for the trip; they were told that this would be a short coastal voyage to Southampton. Parts were shipped to Southampton, and preparations were made to move the ship into the King George V Graving Dock when she arrived.
The names of Brown's shipyard employees were booked to local hotels in Southampton to give a false trail of information, and Captain John Townley was appointed as her first master. Townley and his hastily signed-on crew of four hundred Cunard personnel were told by a company representative before they left to pack for a voyage where they could be away from home for up to six months.
By the beginning of March 1940, the Queen Elizabeth was ready for her secret voyage. The Cunard colours were painted over with battleship grey, and on the morning of the 3rd. March, the ship quietly left her moorings in the Clyde and proceeded out of the river to sail further down the coast, where she was met by a King's Messenger, who presented sealed orders directly to the captain.
While waiting for the messenger, the ship was refuelled; adjustments to the compass were made and some final testing of equipment were also carried out before she sailed to her secret destination.
Captain Townley discovered that he was to take the ship directly to New York in the then-neutral United States without stopping, or even slowing to drop off the Southampton harbour pilot who had embarked at Clydebank, and to maintain strict radio silence.
Later that day, at the time when she was due to arrive at Southampton, the city was bombed by the Luftwaffe. The Queen Elizabeth zigzagged across the Atlantic to elude German U-boats, and took six days to reach New York at an average speed of 26 knots.
In New York she found herself moored alongside both Queen Mary and the French Line's Normandie, the only time all three of the world's largest ocean liners were ever berthed together.
Captain Townley received two telegrams upon his arrival, one from his wife congratulating him, and the other from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth thanking him for the vessel's safe delivery. The ship was then secured so that no one could board her without prior permission, including port officials.
The Queen Elizabeth left the port of New York on the 13th. November 1940 for Singapore to receive her troopship conversion. After two stops to refuel and to replenish her stores in Trinidad and Cape Town, she arrived in Singapore's naval docks, where she was fitted with anti-aircraft guns, and her hull repainted grey.
As a troopship, Queen Elizabeth left Singapore on the 11th. February, and on the 23rd. February 1942 she secretly arrived in Esquimalt, British Columbia, Canada. She underwent refit work in drydock, adding accommodation and armaments, and three hundred naval ratings quickly painted the hull.
In mid-March, carrying 8,000 American soldiers, the Queen Elizabeth began a 7,700-mile voyage from San Francisco to Sydney, Australia. Initially she carried Australian troops to theatres of operation in Asia and Africa. After 1942, the two Queens were relocated to the North Atlantic for the transportation of American troops to Europe.
Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary were both used as troop transports during the war. Their high speeds allowed them to outrun hazards, principally German U-boats, usually allowing them to travel outside a convoy. During her war service as a troopship, Queen Elizabeth carried more than 750,000 troops, and she also sailed some 500,000 miles (800,000 km).
R.M.S. Queen Elizabeth After the Second World War
Following the end of the Second World War, the Queen Elizabeth was refitted and furnished as an ocean liner, while her running mate Queen Mary remained in her wartime role and grey appearance except for her funnels, which were repainted in the company's colours. For another year, her sibling did military service, returning troops and G.I. brides to the United States while the Queen Elizabeth was overhauled at the Firth of Clyde Drydock, in Greenock, by the John Brown Shipyard.
Six years of war service had never permitted the formal sea trials to take place, so they were now finally undertaken. Under the command of Commodore Sir James Bisset, the ship travelled to the Isle of Arran and her trials were carried out.
On board was the ship's namesake, Queen Elizabeth, and her two daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. During the trials, Queen Elizabeth took the wheel for a brief time, and the two young princesses recorded the two measured runs with stopwatches that they had been given for the occasion.
Bisset was under strict instructions from Sir Percy Bates, who was also on board for the trials, that all that was required from the ship was two measured runs of no more than 30 knots, and that she was not permitted to attempt to attain a higher speed record than Queen Mary.
After her trials Queen Elizabeth finally entered passenger service, allowing Cunard White Star to launch the long-planned two-ship weekly service to New York. Despite specifications similar to those of Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth never held the Blue Riband, because Sir Percy Bates ordered that the two ships should not try to compete against each other.
The Queen Elizabeth ran aground on a sandbank off Southampton on the 14th. April 1947, and was re-floated the following day. In 1955, during an annual overhaul at Southampton, England, the Queen Elizabeth was fitted with underwater fin stabilisers to smooth the ride in rough seas. Two fins were fitted on each side of the hull. The fins were retractable into the hull to save fuel in smooth seas and for docking.
On the 29th. July 1959, she was in a collision with the American freighter American Hunter in foggy conditions in New York Harbor, and was holed above the waterline.
Together with the Queen Mary and in competition with the American liners SS United States and SS America, the Queen Elizabeth dominated the transatlantic passenger trade until their fortunes began to decline with the advent of the faster and more economical jet airliner in the late 1950's.
As passenger numbers declined, the liners became uneconomic to operate in the face of rising fuel and labour costs. For a short time, Queen Elizabeth—now under the command of Commodore Geoffrey Trippleton Marr—attempted a dual role in order to become more profitable; when not plying her usual transatlantic route, she cruised between New York and Nassau.
For this new tropical purpose, the ship received a major refit in 1965, with a new Lido deck added to her aft section, enhanced air conditioning, and an outdoor swimming pool. With these improvements, Cunard intended to keep the ship in operation until at least the mid-1970's. However, the strategy did not prove successful, owing to the ship's deep draught, which prevented her from entering various island ports, her width, which preventing her from using the Panama Canal, and also her high fuel costs.
Cunard retired Queen Mary in 1967 and Queen Elizabeth in 1969, and replaced them with a single smaller ship, the more economical Queen Elizabeth 2.
R.M.S. Queen Elizabeth - The Final Years
In 1968, the Queen Elizabeth was sold to a group of American businessmen who intended to operate the ship as a hotel and tourist attraction in Port Everglades, Florida, similar to the planned use of Queen Mary in Long Beach, California.
Elizabeth, as she was now called, actually opened to tourists before Queen Mary (which opened in 1971) but it was not to last. The climate of southern Florida was much harder on Queen Elizabeth than the climate of southern California was on Queen Mary. The ship was forced to close after losing money and being declared a fire hazard. The vessel was sold at auction in 1970 to Hong Kong tycoon Tung Chao Yung.
Tung intended to convert the vessel into a university. The ship was renamed Seawise University, as a play on Tung's initials (C.Y.). It was decided to sail her to Hong Kong. This proved to be problematic, for the ship's engines and boilers were in poor condition after several years of neglect. Experts suggested that the Seawise University be towed to the New Territories, but Tung and his crew were convinced that they could sail the ship there using just the aft engines and boilers.
The planned several-week trip turned into months as the crew battled with boiler issues and a fire. An unplanned lengthy mid-voyage stopover allowed the new owners to fly spare parts out to the ship and carry out repairs before resuming the course to Hong Kong Harbour.
With the £5 million conversion nearing completion, the vessel caught fire on the 9th. January 1972. There is some suspicion that the fires were set deliberately, as several blazes broke out simultaneously throughout the ship. The fact that C.Y. Tung had acquired the vessel for $3.5 million, and had insured it for $8 million, led some to speculate that the inferno was part of a fraud to collect on the insurance claim.
The ship was completely destroyed by the fire, and the water sprayed on her by fire-boats caused the burnt wreck to sink in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour. The vessel was finally declared a shipping hazard, and dismantled for scrap between 1974 and 1975. Portions of the hull that were not salvaged were left at the bottom of the bay.
The keel and boilers remained at the bottom of the harbour, and the area was marked as 'Foul' on local sea charts. It is estimated that around 40–50% of the wreck was still on the seabed. In the late 1990's, the last remains of the wreck were buried during land reclamation for the construction of Container Terminal 9.
After the fire, Tung had one of the liner's anchors and the metal letters 'Q' and 'E' from the name on the bow placed in front of the office building at Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, California, which had been intended as the headquarters of the Seawise University venture. They later went on display with commemorative plaques in the lobby of Wall Street Plaza, 88 Pine Street, New York City.
Two of the ship's fire warning system brass plaques were recovered by a dredger, and were displayed at The Aberdeen Boat Club in Hong Kong in an exhibit about the ship. The charred remnants of her last ensign were cut from the flagpole and framed in 1972, and still adorn the wall of the officers' mess of marine police HQ in Hong Kong.
Parker Pen Company produced a special edition of 5,000 pens made from material recovered from the wreck, each in a presentation box; today these are highly collectible.
R.M.S. Queen Elizabeth in Fiction
In 1959, the ship made an appearance in the British satirical comedy film 'The Mouse That Roared', starring Peter Sellers and Jean Seberg.
Ian Fleming set the climax of his 1956 James Bond novel 'Diamonds Are Forever' on Queen Elizabeth.
The wreck was featured in the 1974 James Bond film 'The Man with the Golden Gun', as a covert headquarters for MI6. Q's labs also are in the wreckage of this ship.
