Pablo Neruda's Ship Figureheads

A decorative figure placed at the head of a ship is called a figurehead. Whether in the form of a person or animal, figureheads have been deployed on sailing vessels for more than 5,000 years, with their zenith occurring in 17th century England and Europe.

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973), winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize for Literature, drew on figureheads both literally and figuratively throughout his career. A native and resident of Chile, Neruda wrote passionately about the sea and was an obsessive collector of many objects. His work as a Chilean consul meant a life of travel, as did invitations he received to read his poetry throughout the world. Those opportunities facilitated his hunt for the extraordinary collection he assembled of carved wood figureheads of men and women in different sizes, poses, attitudes, and attire, as well as several figurehead-like décor pieces. Figureheads represented a sculpture type that Neruda loved and knew firsthand from ships he studied, including some whose careers ended in Chile following damage sustained off treacherous Cape Horn.

At the same time, Neruda continually created a juggernaut of publicity to stimulate interest in his own life and writing, and the ever-changing stories he crafted about his figurehead collection—he lived with many of the carvings in his ship-like home in Isla Negra, Chile—were one of the tools he drew upon. Carol Olsen here showcases recently discovered information about the carvings, discoveries that reveal new views of the poet, aspects of maritime history, and the craft and preservation of ship figureheads. Neruda is seen close-up in foreign countries, hunting and acquiring, as one person put it, “like a prehistoric lizard,” forever presenting himself a connoisseur. Olsen captures the way that the carvings were woven into Neruda’s life of political, social, and romantic turmoil, the glamorous cultural circles in which he traveled, and lingers over the solemn poetry he wrote to and about his figureheads. It tells, too, how Neruda’s third wife, Matilde Urrutia, kept his figurehead collection intact until the Pablo Neruda Foundation was created and how Neruda’s figureheads connect thematically and stylistically to other ship figureheads throughout the world. An underlying urgency about sharing these stories is that the carvings are on display in Neruda’s beach home in Chile, a region at high risk for earthquakes and tsunamis. In 2019 and 2020, Neruda’s became one of the best documented figurehead collections in the world due to a generous grant to the Pablo Neruda Foundation from the Fondo Mejoramiento Integral de Museos, Servicio Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural; many of those photos will illustrate this book.

Olsen’s study also provides snapshots of beguiling hull art imagery from many cultures over thousands of years that contrast greatly with Neruda’s collection, and it documents today’s boaters who decorate their vessels in perishable materials like vinyl graphics and other non-traditional materials. Neruda, on the other hand, did not leave us much in the way of documentation, which is why this research that seeks to decipher fact from fantasy is highly valuable for getting us closer to Neruda’s figurehead collection—and Neruda himself—than has been previously possible.