Croisières en Afrique du Nord

Tome Ⅰ – Dominique Boudet

In the Sahara

By camel, by car, by ocean liner

The adventure of the Saharan cruises of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, under the presidency of John Dal Piaz from 1920 to 1928, is part of those bold and little-known initiatives that the company implemented between the two wars by venturing into international tourism, while continuing to strengthen its passenger lines in the Mediterranean.

The journey to Africa, through a French colonial empire then at its peak, with its countless riches to discover, offered a highly attractive alternative to the destination of Egypt, particularly the cruises on the Nile, which were very popular among the Anglo-Saxons, especially since the discovery in 1922 by Lord Carnarvon of the nearly intact tomb of Tutankhamun.

Reconstructing the key moments of this adventure, based on documents preserved in private collections, associations, libraries, or acquired during public sales, seemed like an exhilarating challenge worth taking up.

Tome Ⅱ – Sébastien Meer

The tourism of the Roaring Twenties

as seen by Sandoz

When Sandoz set off in 1922 for his first journey along the Algerian coast heading toward Marrakech, he was a 41-year-old man with an established reputation. The artist thus traveled serenely to discover North Africa, following the routes imagined by the Compagnie générale transatlantique. Between 1922 and 1928, he traveled as a privileged passenger on the Transat circuits, between the seaside and the desert sands. During his African travels, as in all of his other trips, Sandoz worked like an ethnologist: he studied, documented, described, represented, or photographed what he saw. The illustrations followed the stages of his journey, accompanied by some topographical, botanical, or toponymic details that marked his narrative with images. A painter on the move, his equipment was limited to a small bag, a few wooden panels, and his workshops were the deck of a ship, the Mitidja, the Djurjura, the Aurès, the Atlas and its foothills, the reg, the desert… These were mandated journeys through the landscapes of North Africa, but they were desired by the artist, who had reached out to one of his friends, Maurice Regnault, who then introduced him to John Dal Piaz. It seems the two men got along well, as five trips followed. Although undertaken as part of a commission, the images brought back by Sandoz deviate from the conventional praise one might have expected. The artist indeed presents a personal account of his travels, filled with scenes of daily life, landscapes, and portraits.