The V&A, Dundee, is holding an Exhibition about tartan. It goes on until Jan 2024. It’s worth seeing.

We visited it in August (and again with our eldest son, his wife and daughter, in September.)

One of the exhibits is the oldest piece of tartan known:-

There are many examples of tartan being used for promotional or decorative purposes:-

These can go back a long time:-

However I did not expect to see a NATO tartan nor one commemorating the SALT Treaty:-

Tartan is not an exclusively Scottish style. Below is a Burmese one:-

Beside that  was a Masai one:-

Madras tartans were once thought to have been inspired by Scots but they are in fact indigenous to India:-

Tartans from Balmoral testify to Queen Victoria’s enthusiasm for Scottish culture:-

Modern takes on tartan. (There’s a Dundee FC strip in the background here):-

The first stop on the cruise we took last year was … Dundee! It’s only about twenty-five miles or so away from Son of the Rock Acres but it cost £200 less, each, for us to board at Newcastle rather than embark a day later at Dundee. No brainer.

The ship’s docking point in Scotland’s fourth city did give me a view of the Tay Bridge I hadn’t had before, though.

To the extreme right of the above photo is the new V&A Dundee, better seen in the photo below with RSS Discovery and Discovery Point beyond V&A:-

Wandering round the city centre I came across these stone penguins having a wee daunder:-

Nearby was this plaque commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of the Great War. “Dedicated to the glory of god and to those men and women who in all corners of the world gave their lives in service of our beloved country. We Will Remember Them, 11th November 1989.”

Previously I have posted about the (relatively) new V&A building in Dundee here and, in the background, here.

V&A logo by entrance:-

Exterior curve:-

View to Tay Bridge through “tunnel”:-

Apparently the wind can sweep through the tunnel quite severely. View to city through tunnel:-

Overhanging River Tay:-

Exterior planting:-

Interior:-

View of Tay Bridge through slit window:-

High Art Deco (and huge) brass wall panel from an ocean liner. Floor to ceiling in the exhibition space -see wall lighting photo below:-

Art Deco lamp from an ocean liner:-

Wall light:-

The exhibition’s wall lighting was in keeping with the deco feel:-

Ocean liner Art Deco wall decoration:-

The liners catered for all tastes and persuasions. Art Deco Torah Ark:-

For some reason one of the exhibits was a model of a Le Corbusier building. (The Art Deco metal jug behind it surely dripped when used.)

Illustration of French Ocean Liner Interior, SS Normandie as I recall:-

Illustrations for proposed ocean liner interiors; never used:-

Art Deco bronze wall plaques:-

Art Deco Ocean Liner carpet:-

Art Deco Ocean Liner wall display and chairs. The chair on the right is stunning:-

The entrance display room to the Ocean Liners Exhibition, V&A, Dundee, displays advertising posters from the earliest liner eras up to the time when they were replaced by air travel.

My eye was mostly taken by classic Art Deco ones such as this for an Italian shipping line:-

Not to mention the classic SS Normandie:-

And the SS Empress of Britain:-

This brochure is from the NYK line:-

These are pages illustrating the high life of ocean liner travel:-

Finally and not Art Deco, the cover of a brochure for the QE2, whose first voyage down the Clyde to take her sea-trials we were all given a day off school to witness. Even then everyone knew there would never be such a ship built on the Clyde again:-

We visited the new V&A, Dundee, last week where the first exhibition was on Ocean Liners, with the sub-heading Speed and Style:-

Exhibition Poster, V&A entrance behind:-

This post only scratches the surface of what is a sumptuous exhibition which is mainly a feast of Art Deco style reflecting the ocean liner’s inter-wars heyday.

Brochure for French shipping line:-

United States Lines Brochure:-

It’s not exclusively Art Deco, though. This is a Louis XIV style door from a pre World War 1 French liner:-

A similar Louis XIV style panel and chair:-

Wall panel from one of the Titanic’s sister ships, SS Olympic:-

The ultimate in streamlined ship design. Perhaps it was fortunate this was never built. Everything’s enclosed, there’s no deck where you could take the air. (It also looks a bit like a submarine):-