Forget the slogans and speeches. They tend to be hollow and even insincere, especially if they come from bureaucrats. On May Day (International Workers’ Day, 1st of May), let’s have some art to honour the maritime workers whose daily struggles and honest toil often go unnoticed.

Hurrah! to fishermen and fisherwomen

Falmouth Natives, 1886
Oil on canvas
Charles Napier Hemy (British, 1841–1917)
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

En route pour la pêche (Setting Out to Fish), 1878
Oil on canvas
John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925)
Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Hurrah! to stevedores and waterfront workers

Port of Bordeaux, 1871
Oil on canvas
Édouard Manet (French, 1832–1883)
Courtesy of Directmedia Publishing

Hurrah! to merchant sailors

All Hands to the Pumps, 1888–9
Oil on canvas
Henry Scott Tuke (English, 1858–1929)
Courtesy of Tate
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Hurrah! to harbour pilots

A pilot comes aboard a ship (detail), in or after 1666
Etching/engraving
Joost van Geel (Dutch, 1631–1698)
Courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Hurrah! to shipyard workers

Building Ships: A Workshop, c. 1917
Lithograph on paper
Sir Muirhead Bone (Scottish, 1876–1953)
Courtesy of Tate
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

~ Barista Uno

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