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99-004 "Queen Mary - War and Peace"
1999, Acrylic on Illustration Board

Sailing from darker times to brighter, the Queen Mary transforms before our eyes - gray painted and packed with 16,000 soldiers, then back in her peacetime livery, boldly black, white, and vermilion. The change in her appearance was dramatic - and necessary. German submarines were desperate to hunt the Queen down, and her civilian colors made her an easy target. The camouflage made her nearly invisible, and her speed made her uncatchable: a fleeting apparition on the sea that earned her the nickname "gray ghost". After the war, it must have been hard to imagine that the glittering queen of the seas had once traveled so incognito.

Chris Butler