Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Camouflage Artist | Genevieve Cowles

Poster © Roy R. Behrens (2017)
Anon, TO TELL OF CAMOUFLAGE OF AMERICAN VESSELS: Miss Genevieve Cowles Will Speak at YWCA Tomorrow Night at 8:15 in The Times Dispatch (Richmond VA), February 11, 1919, p. 3—

Miss Genevieve Cowles of the Women’s Reserve Camouflage Corps of the National League for Women’s Service will speak at the YWCA tomorrow night at 8:15 on “Marine Camouflage, the Art That Saved the Ship.” Miss Cowles was trained under William Andrew Mackay, head camoufleur of the United States Shipping Board, and has proved a capable worker. She was pledged to secrecy during the duration of the war.

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Anon, NEW YORK ARTIST TO DESCRIBE CAMOUFLAGE in Hartford Courant (Hartford CT). March 7, 1919, p. 10—

The annual art lecture to be given at the Congregational Church Monday evening at 8 o’clock, by the Currents Events Club, will be free to the public. Miss Genevieve Cowles, a well-known artist of New York, will speak on “Army and Navy Camouflage.” Miss Cowles is a mumber of the Women’s Reserve Camouflage Corps under the National League for Women’s Service in New York, and has recently returned from France.

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Cartoon caption [signed ERH], A FREE TIP FOR THE ARMY: WHY NOT TRY WOMEN CAMOUFLEURS? in The Ogden Standard (Ogden UT), December 3, 1917, p. 11—

Why don’t some of the armies hire women as camoufleurs, anyhow? They’ve been doing it all their lives. Think of the rouge, the switches and the powder puff. Then ponder over the pads and braces.

Why, as we gather it, half the art of being an up-to-date young woman is camouflage.

Of course there are men, too, like John D. [Rockefeller] who wear wigs; and other brothers who disguise themselves (absent method) as sick patients to help the fourth man in the game to get out for the evening.

Old stuff, this camouflaging.