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| WWI American poster |
More recently I’ve found out about a third Armenian artist, named Katchador Boroian (1889-1989), who contributed to camouflage during WWI. Born in Chunkoosh, Armenia, Borolan emigrated to the US in 1912, and settled in Chicago, where he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. During those years, he supported himself as a commercial artist, which, among other projects, included his completion of a mural for the Chicago Daily News building.
In June 1917, he registered for the draft in Chicago. He was soon after inducted into the US Army where, according to various sources, he “painted helmets and artillery for camouflage.”
He moved to Los Angeles after the war, and lived there for the rest of his life, initially in Yettem, then in Dinuba, and finally in Fresno. Earlier, he had taught himself needlepoint, which would prove invaluable when, disabled by glaucoma in the 1940s, he could no longer use standard art materials. Twenty-five years later, he discovered that he could resume his earlier work if he used needlepoint, which he continued to do for the rest of his life.
At the close of his life, at age 99, Boroian was blind in one eye, but continued to work at a card table in his retirement quarters at the California Armenian Home in Fresno.
RELATED LINKS
Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? / Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage / Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage / Optical science meets visual art / Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness / Under the big top at Sims' circus
