New Exhibit At Noble Maritime Collection – Andrea Doria: Rescue At Sea, Greatest Peacetime Rescue In History

Noble Maritime Collection presents Andrea Doria: Rescue at Sea a new exhibition about the greatest peacetime rescue in maritime history

The Noble Maritime Collection presents Andrea Doria: Rescue at Sea, an exhibition about the 1956 sinking of the SS Andrea Doria and the rescue of her passengers.

The exhibition will be on view from June 16, 2022 through June 2023.

The SS Andrea Doria was the pride of postwar Italy. A glamorous transatlantic ocean liner, she was a “floating art gallery” and a marvel of midcentury modern design. She carried celebrities as well as Italian immigrants to new opportunities in America.

On July 25, 1956, the Swedish liner MS Stockholm collided with the Andrea Doria, which was en route to New York. The subsequent rescue was one of the most dramatic and well-documented in sea history.

The Andrea Doria foundered 11 hours after the collision, and now lays on her starboard side 250 feet below the surface, about 50 miles from Nantucket.

The exhibition will feature objects and artifacts from the extensive collection of diver and researcher John Moyer, Salvor in Possession of the Andrea Doria. 

In addition to numerous rare photographs and artwork, on display will be a lifering from the Andrea Doria, as well as china from all passenger classes, pottery, glassware, silverware, and the ship’s brass bell, recovered by Moyer and a team of divers.

The exhibition was developed with the guidance of survivor, educator, author, and filmmaker Pierette Domenica Simpson, who is the gatekeeper of Andrea Doria survivor stories. She is the author of the books Alive on the Andrea Doria!: The Greatest Sea Rescue in History and I Was Shipwrecked on the Andrea Doria! The Titanic of the 1950s.

Archival newsreel footage of the Andrea Doria’s maiden voyage, the collision, and the rescue of her passengers—all provided by the Sherman Grinberg Library—will be shown in the exhibition on a converted Firestone television from 1956, the year of the sinking.

The exhibition also includes underwater footage shot by Bill Campbell and Billy Deans of John Moyer and a team diving to the wreck and recovering two 1,000-pound ceramic mural panels by Italian artist Guido Gambone (1909-1969).

The Noble Maritime Collection

Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Building D

1000 Richmond Terrace

Staten Island, NY 10301

Learn more about the exhibit or view the exhibit

Banner Image: The Italian Line flagship SS Andrea Doria off the coast of Italy, c. 1953; public domain

Ciro Galeno

The mission of the Noble Maritime Collection, an art and history museum in Staten Island, New York, is to present exhibitions and programs that celebrate the working waterfront of New York Harbor in the tradition of distinguished artist John A. Noble (1913-1983), and to preserve Robbins Reef Lighthouse and the history of Sailors’ Snug Harbor.