Mark B. Perry Screenwriter & Novelist

If you’ve read my novel And Introducing Dexter Gaines, you’ve probably guessed I have an obsession with ocean liners, with my favorite ship, the SS United States, having a star turn as the maiden voyage setting for a rather significant plot point. This fascination started when I was around eight-years-old thanks to a chance viewing of the 1960 disaster film, The Last Voyage, which was shot entirely aboard the very real 1920s era French ship, the Ile de France. I thought she was one of the coolest, most beautiful things I’d ever seen. In the ensuing years, I read as many books about passenger ships as I could get my hands on in land-locked Atlanta, and eventually began collecting ocean liner artifacts, furnishings, artwork, and ephemera. Today, like many collectors of a certain age, I’ve now reached the tipping point between curating and hoarding, and while I’m beginning to part with most of my collection, there are a handful of pieces that will have to be pried from my cold dead hands. In particular, item number 419 from the Swann Auction Galleries catalog of Ocean Liner Memorabilia from the Frank O. Braynard Collection, sale 2147, May 22, 2008.

The auction was sanctioned by Braynard’s daughter Noelle, who also happens to be a friend. If you’re unfamiliar with Mr. Braynard and his passion, I suggest you Google him before reading further. In short, he was one of the most highly esteemed ship historians of the 20^th or any other century. Although I never had the honor of meeting him, Braynard and I shared a lifelong love of ships in general, and the SS United States in particular, so when the catalog for the sale arrived listing well over 400 artifacts the man himself had deemed worthy, I devoured it, penciling check marks next to the ones that caught my fancy, always on the hunt for something new and noteworthy, drooling over the many color photos of various posters, models, builders plates, and other goodies. I was completely unaware I was about to stumble into a maritime mystery that would take years to solve. There was no picture to accompany the Swann listing, just this tantalizing description:

419 • (UNITED STATES LINES.) “United States.” Small piece of a larger aluminum wall decoration designed by Purvis [sic]. Rather phallic looking piece of aluminum which was at one time a part of a much larger wall sculpture or decoration, 5×9 inches greatest dimensions: on a wooden mount with the label “Presented to the High Potentate of K. the B.B.” On the back of the mount is a note in Braynard’s hand certifying that the piece was from the “United States.” The aluminum piece has come loose from the mount, but can be easily reattached. Nd [250/350]

I remembered reading about such an item in Braynard’s be-all and end-all book, The Big Ship: The Story of the SS United States, and had pondered its whereabouts. And lo and behold, here it was, this “rather phallic” bit of metal had to be the subject of this paragraph from page 97:

One of the many well-known artists employed to decorate “the Big Ship” was Seymour Lipton. He did many of the aluminum sculptures that provided a continuity of décor in the ship’s foyers and public spaces. In the Tourist Dining Saloon one of his works featured a bull. The bull had a most obvious male organ and, on the first trial trip, this caught the eye of the somewhat sedate New York Times ship news editor George Fox Horne. George, possibly in a casual moment, questioned the taste of the decoration. His comment was taken quite seriously by a number of people and the shipyard’s public relations director Bob Hopkins found himself in the center of a growing storm. The matter went all the way up to William Francis Gibbs. Some weeks later in his third floor office at 229 West 43^rd Steet, Mr. Horne was surprised to receive a large package from Newport News. Opening it he found the offending male member affixed to a polished plaque, a gift from the shipyard. The bull had been, in effect, castrated. This emasculation brought a storm of protest from artist Lipton, who objected most strenuously to his work being altered. Years later when he retired to move back to Oklahoma, George gave the plaque to me. Still more years later I loaned it to friends in the American Bureau of Shipping to be copied as a farewell “joke” retirement present for their Ralph Christiansen. Mr. Christiansen had been most active for the ABS in connection with the building of the United States.

Now notice Braynard’s book credits artist Seymour Lipton with the sculpture and the outrage over the crime committed against his art, while Swann attributes it to Austin Purves (and misspelled his name). This could be chalked up to a clerical error on the part of Swann Galleries. Whoever the artist, the estimated hammer price was between $250 and $350, but while bidding over the phone, I got swept into a heart-pounding competitive frenzy and ended up paying more than I wish to confess. When the package arrived from New York and I saw my purchase for the first time, I realized it was not “rather phallic” but “100% phallic” with all the—ahem—equipment in place. It was definitely the piece Braynard had written about. I’m still baffled by the words “PRESENTED TO THE HIGH POTENTATE OF K. THE B.B.” If anyone has any idea what that means, do let me know! I’ve pixelated the image in the interest of internet decorum:

Still, the question remained: where had the original offending sculpture been installed aboard the ship? It’s worth noting here that we mostly see the same photos of the Big U’s interiors over and over again, and in all the available images, I’d never seen a picture of a bull anywhere aboard, and certainly not one that had been neutered. To further obscure the mystery, a bull is referenced in the famous 1984 Guernsey’s auction catalog as part of lot A539 described as: “TWO ALUMINUM SILHOUETTES, Pegasus and Taurus, by Michael Lantz.” Pegasus the winged horse is shown in a photograph, but alas not the poor overlooked Taurus the bull. And now we’ve gone from Purves to Lipton and now Lantz. It appears Guernsey’s got it right. Michael Lantz did indeed created the metal bas relief silhouettes that adorned the walls of the Cabin Class Dining Room, and one of them was a bull. Could Braynard have gotten his facts wrong? It’s worth noting I briefly considered the theory that the piece might have been severed from Pegasus. As you can see in the photo below, there’s a bit of a “nub” where certain parts would normally be, but unless all the images of this sculpture have been flipped horizontally, the puzzle pieces definitely do not fit.

I then wrote to my friend Noelle, who has carefully curated her father’s archives. Here’s my query:

“In the Big Ship, your father wrote that the sculpture was a bull by artist Seymour Lipton on the wall of the Tourist Class Dining room, but research indicates that the TCDR had wall art of a much more mid-century abstract nature (in keeping with the style of Lipton’s work). The Guernsey’s catalog from the auction lists sculptures by Michael Lantz from the walls of the CCDR, one being Pegasus (and there’s a picture), the other is Taurus (a bull!), but just to really frustrate things, there’s no photo in the catalog and I’ve never come across one in all my research. I can’t help but wonder if this Taurus piece by Lantz was the original owner of the purloined phallus in question. So I’m still trying to get a little more information into what I believe is, arguably, the crown jewels of SSUS collecting (sorry, couldn’t resist)!”

Noelle wrote back promptly, and included a photo she’d taken of an earlier draft of the paragraph from the book, this one with penciled cross outs and handwritten notes:

The Case of the Bull: One of the Austin Purvis (here Braynard has crossed out Purvis’ misspelled name and substituted Seymour Lipton) Seymour Lipton aluminum sculptures (?) was a bull (question mark from Braynard’s notes). The aluminum bull was featured in the Cabin Class Dining Room (where?) (Again, Braynard’s note). It had a most obvious male organ and on the trial trip this caught the eye of the sedate New York Times ship news editor, George Horne. George questioned the taste of the decoration with this feature. Public Relations Director of the shipyard, Bob Hopkins, found himself the center of a storm. The matter went all the way up to WFG. Some weeks later in his 3^rd floor ship news office at 229 West 43^rd Street George Horne was surprised to receive a large package from Newport News. Opening it, he found the offending member affixed to a polished plaque – a gift to him from the shipyard. He gave it to the author twenty-five years later when he retired. The emasculation brought something of a tempest down on Gibbs and Cox, because Seymour Lipton objected strenuously and quite naturally to the decision to alter his work.

As Noelle explained to me, Braynard made some revisions to the manuscript after an interview with Ann Urquhart in 1978 (one of the ship’s original interior designers), changing the artist from Purves to Lipton, and the bull’s location from Tourist to Cabin. Though curiously, in the 1981 edition of the published work, the bull’s been sent back down to steerage but is still attributed to Lipton. Further muddling the mystery, Noelle said the handwritten notes were neither her father nor mother’s handwriting. Still, an intriguing if frustrating clue.

I was inclined to chalk this all up to human error. It’s possible Urquhart got the names muddled, but the result was that both Swann and Braynard mixed up various combos of artist and location. By this time, I was leaning closer to the theory the elusive sculpture was in fact Taurus by Michael Lantz. With the metal bull’s junk as my only clue, I scoured my books and the internet for images, hoping to find a match as if reenacting a bizarre spin on Prince Charming and Cinderella’s slipper.

No such luck.

Enter author, historian, preservationist, passionate devote of the SS United States and all around good guy, Stanton Daywalt, one of the authors of the exceptional SS United States: An Operational Guide to America’s Flagship. We became acquainted while he was putting the finishing touches on his book, having reached out to me for some images of items in my collection. I told him the tale of the gelded bull, and he enthusiastically joined the hunt, also confirming the sculpture was no doubt the work of Michael Lantz.

A few months later, Stanton texted that he’d found the desexed bull. Well, a picture of it anyway. He had access to a treasure trove of seldom seen photos, including many taken aboard the ship by John DeVenney. And good old Taurus the bull was among them! With a quick bit of Photoshop wizardry, I was able to reunite the bull with his manhood. Not only was it a perfect fit, it also made clear the origins of the scandal. As originally envisioned by the artist, the piece really does seem wholly inappropriate for a public family dining room.

And with that mystery solved, a bigger question has emerged: who bought the impotent bull sculpture at the Guernsey’s auction and where is it today? Are the current owners aware of its missing bits? Is it in pieces gathering dust in a box in someone’s garage? Displayed on a wall somewhere people have long forgotten its origins? I hope to find it someday, and if it’s for sale at the right price, I’ll make the reunion permanent.