The deck of ELLINIS
Maker
Frederick B Lamberger
(1907 - 1986)
DateAugust 1971- September 1971
Object number00027858
NameDrawing
MediumInk on paper
DimensionsOverall: 234 x 165 mm
ClassificationsArt
Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from Catherine Gluck
DescriptionFrederick Lamberger sketched this view of the passenger ship ELLINIS during a voyage from Southampton, England, to Fremantle, Western Australia, between 21 August and 20 September 1971. In this slightly abstract sketch Lamberger drew the deckhouse of the ship with two hatches, a staircase, a lifeboat on its davit and passengers walking along the deck.HistoryFrederick Baranyhegyi-Lamberger was born on 9 May 1907 in Pozsony (now Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia) in western Hungary. His parents owned an electrical business in Budapest, where they raised Frederick and his older sister until moving to Gyáli on the city's outskirts around 1911 to start a stationery and printing business. The Lamberger family was one of three Jewish families living in the predominantly anti-Semitic area.
After completed his secondary schooling Frederick applied to study medicine at university. His application was denied due to restrictions placed on the number of Jewish students who could be admitted to tertiary education. He settled on an office job in a large manufacturing company. In 1933 Frederick's mother died, and when his father died four years later, he left for England to further his education. In 1939, the Hungarian Consulate in London refused to renew his expired passport and demanded that he return to Hungary and join the army. Frederick refused and fled to France where he joined the French underground movement - the Maquis - until he was arrested after only a few months. After being liberated by the United States Army, he was employed as a liaison officer. Frederick’s sister Catherine Gluck, whose husband had been forced into Hungarian labour in 1939, joined him in Paris in 1946.
Life was difficult in Paris after World War II, and so in 1950 the pair decided to emigrate from France. After Frederick became guarantor for his sister, the Australian Government granted them permission to migrate to Australia. Catherine sailed on Flotta Lauro's NAPOLI and Frederick on ROMA a week later, arriving in Sydney in December 1950.
For the first few years, Frederick worked a range of jobs including tram conductor, waiter, cosmetic manufacturer, sewing machine salesman and public servant, until he set up a successful coffee lounge 'Espresso Rialto' in Kings Cross, Sydney, around 1956. Like many migrants before him, Frederick became an Australian citizen after five years residency, and in 1956 was granted consent by the Commonwealth Government to use the surname 'Lamberger' rather than 'Baranyhegyi-Lamberger'.
In 1959 Frederick sold his business and took the first of what would be many world cruises. He left Sydney on QUEEN MARY bound for New York, during which time he made his first sketches to accompany letters to his sister Catherine. He then sailed to Japan on PRESIDENT CLEVELAND. In April 1960 Frederick first exhibited his pen sketches in the salon of CHANGTE during an extended cruise through Asia. He returned to Australia 18 months later.
Back in Sydney, Frederick set up an antiques and collectibles store in Kings Cross called 'The Kings Cross Museum', which was popular with locals and sailors on rest and recuperation during the Vietnam War. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Frederick travelled extensively and provided a detailed account of his voyages through his drawings. The drawings illustrate various shipboard activities from deck tennis to evening dances, as well as cities and monuments Frederick visited, many of which feature accompanying text. Frederick also sketched a range of stylised architectural views of ships and their fittings, which from a drafting perspective, are his strongest works.
Frederick Lamberger died in 1986, aged 79.
LURLINE was a steel twin-screw passenger and cargo vessel of 18,021 tons built in 1932 by Bethlehem Ship Building Corp Ld at Quincy, USA. It could accommodate 475 first-class and 240 tourist passengers. In 1933 LURLINE was owned by the Oceanic Steam Ship Company (Matson Line) and registered in San Francisco under an American flag. During World War II it was used by the US Navy to transport troops and then given back to the Matson Line who resumed service between San Francisco and Honolulu as a luxury liner.
It was bought by the Chandris Group in September 1963 in response to the boom in the Australian migrant trade. After a brief refit to increase passenger accommodation, it was renamed ELLINIS and departed on its first voyage to Australia in December 1963. ELLINIS was scrapped in 1987.SignificanceThis sketch is part of a collection of drawings by Hungarian migrant Frederick Lamberger illustrating his personal experiences on board various passenger ships from the 1950s to the 1970s. The collection also represents the migration story of Frederick and his sister Catherine Gluck, who escaped the misery of post-World War II Europe to make a new life in Australia. Frederick Lamberger's sketches are also held in the State Library of New South Wales collection.