Designer John Vassos / WWII Camouflage Consultant

John Vassos, c1932

Above Art Deco-era turnstyle, designed by John Vassos, c1932. We blogged about Greek-American designer John Vassos a few years go in reference to his service as a camouflage consultant during World War II.

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CUBISM DOMINATES NEW PARIS SALON ARTISTS, in Bluefield Daily Telegraph (Bluefield WV), September 19, 1926, Section 2, Page 4—

Paris, Sept 18—Cubism completely dominates the new Paris Salon of decorative artists. The curve must only be used in case of grave necessity. Straight lines, angles and zigzags dominate tables, chairs, lighting, jewelry, clocks, and, above all, architecture. Even carpets and curtains have to fit octogonal rooms, and are cut up themselves into tee-squares and triangles.

Chairs look as though they were cut out of solid cubes of wood and then camouflaged with a medley of colors. Curtains are often painted by hand in vivid thunder and lightning effects. The edges are made of strips of different color, each of which is a littler shorter than the last, like the ABC of a diary. Clocks are made entirely of glass, but have square faces, and are supported by glass stands cut like a Chinese puzzle. Heading lamps are equally geometrical problems. Colors are almost as angular, consisting of vivid greens, purples, magnates, raw siennas, sometimes all mixed together. The new Decorative Salon is nothing if it is not revolutionary.

Camouflage Artist | John Vassos

Cover of John Vassos biography (2016)

We are awaiting the release of the first book-length biography of the American book artist, designer, and camouflage artist John Vassos (1898-1985). Written by Danielle Shapiro, the biography is titled John Vassos: Industrial Design for Modern Life, and is slated for release in late March 2016 (see cover above).

If people have heard of Vassos, it is usually because of his innovative Art Deco-era graphic novels, of which the best known title is Phobia, which was initially published in 1931, then reprinted by Dover Publications in 2009, the cover of which is shown below.

Cover of Dover edition of Phobia (2009)

On the other hand, they may also know about his prolific contributions to American industrial design, including TV cabinets and various other devices, while a corporate designer at the RCA Corporation. His design for a RCA Victor Special Model K, Portable Electric Phonograph (c1935) is reproduced below.

It is generally less well-known that he served with the US Army Air Corps during World War II as a camouflage consultant. He also worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA in connection with efforts to support the underground resistance in Greece. In the process, he is said to have secretly parachuted into Greek territory on two occasions.

John Vassos, RCA phonograph design (c1936)

Duplicitous Roadsters Camouflaged and Otherwise

Advertising auto (c1919), Conover T. Silver

Above and below Views of World War I-era cleverly modified roadsters  designed by Conover T. Silver (C.T. Silver Motor Company, New York), for patriotic postcard use (below), and later, during Prohibition, as promotional advertising for “near beer” made by Anheuser-Busch (above).

Anon, AUTO THIEVES BUSY IN WEST: Iowa Suffering Worse Affliction Than in 1917 Through Camouflage Bandits, in The Standard (Springfield MO), July 6, 1918, p. 19—

Auto thieves are reaping a bountiful harvest all over the middle west this year. Over 2,000 cars were stolen in Iowa alone during 1917, and the operations of card bandits during the first half of this year indicate that their total steal for 1918 will far exceed last year’s record.…

According to the authorities, there are today half a dozen clever gangs operating in Iowa for the sole purpose of stealing autos. Their ingenuity in making away with machines, and then disguising them so that they cannot be recognized, is said to be almost beyond belief.

One pair of bandits, still at large, has a trick of getting away with a car that is real camouflage. The pair drive up in greasy mechanics' overalls, approach a car, parked in front of a building or garage, and commence to tinker with the engine. For several minutes they work industriously at their apparent task. Then they jump in the machine and ride away. Even the most suspicious person would mistake the pair for a couple of mechanics assigned to look over the auto in question.

…After the pair get out of town with the machine they usually take it some place to have it repainted. The license number is changed, and the stenciled number on the engine block ground off, and a new number put on.

Patriotic postcard (c1917), Conover T. Silver

Anon, AUTO THIEVES WORK BOLDLY, in Wichita Daily Eagle (Wichita KS), December 9, 1918—

The up-to-date [auto] thieves operating in Rochester NY drive their loot out into unfrequented parts of the country, run the car in a field and camouflage it to resemble a broken down shed, hay stack or pile of brush. The police have recovered a number of these camouflaged cars since the scheme was discovered through a confession.…

John G. Williams, an Omaha NE pioneer, at a meeting of the Nebraska Roads Association, called to discuss the passage of the anti-auto-theft law, “with teeth in it,” recommended hanging as a punishment for auto stealing. “If we string up a few of them it will discourage the others,” he said. “It discouraged the horse thieves in the old days,” he said.

More on Golf, Camouflage & Alister Mackenzie

Inspired by Mackenzie's bunkers, or did art inspire him?

In the blog post prior to this one, we talked about Dr. Alister Mackenzie and his dual contributions to World War I camouflage and the design of major golf courses throughout the world. As a British army camoufleur, he designed trenches—or bunkers. And of course as a golf architect, he designed another kind of bunker, an odd-shaped hazard filled with sand.

I mention this because there is an article by another golf course designer, (Gordon) Desmond Muirhead (1923-2002), in which he too talks about the connections between golf course design and the visual arts. He speculates that the style of the bunkers that Mackenzie designed was probably influenced by the art of early Modernists, among them Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Joan Miro. Here is what he says in "Symbols in Golf Course Architecture" in Executive Golfer (July 1995)—

Mackenzie, a kilt-wearing Scotsman, had the fame and sometimes the temperament of a movie star after he had designed the Augusta National and Cypress Point CA golf courses, arguably two of the half dozen greatest golf courses of all time. His influence was enormous. As a doctor of medicine, a well-educated man, and a competent painter, Mackenzie would be familiar with Picasso and Matisse, because of the world-wide furor that arose over Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Picasso (1908) [sic, actually 1907] and the Fauves paintings by Matisse (1905-1907). It is true that Matisse derived some elaborate amoeboid shapes from early Japanese symbols. But half a century before Matisse, organic undulating shapes from the Arts and Crafts Movement had arisen from the tapestries of William Morris and the many artists of the Art Nouveau movement. In his old age, Matisse, who could no longer paint, used these undulating shapes as cutouts. Mackenzie was also a camouflage artist in WW1, and presumably used similar shapes for this relatively new profession. Anyway, his bunker shapes could have been designed by Matisse, Arp or several similar artists of that period.

Actually, the most compelling resemblance exists between Mackenzie's amoeboid sand traps and various abstract artworks by Hans Arp (aka Jean Arp), as shown on the covers of two well-known books by Harvard art theorist Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Entropy (1971), and Art and Visual Perception (1954, 1974) (as shown below). 

Book covers using artworks by Hans Arp

Design historian Bevis Hillier talked about the popularity of these shapes in The Style of the Century (London: Herbert Press, 1990), p. 119—

These amoeba-like forms invaded design in the immediate post-war period [WW2]…Like the picture frame, the "wiggly" became a hackneyed motif in graphic design…"Wigglies" were further popularized by the big exhibition of Hans Arp's works at the Valentin Gallery, New York, in 1949.

But prior to that, they had also been commonly used in camouflage, where they were jokingly sometimes called "greeny-browny blobs." In his autobiography titled Indigo Days, British artist Julian Trevelyan (who designed civilian building camouflage during WW2) believed that the "wiggly" came from WW2 army camouflage patterns, while others have claimed that it's similar to a kidney-shaped artist's palette, or a cross-section of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto's famous Savoy glassware vase (1947).

War Log of the Camouflaged Mauretania

Herbert Paus, Collier's magazine cover (1918)

The World War I dazzle camouflage of the RMS Mauretania (designed by British camoufleurs) was a sight to behold. Equally interesting is a 1919 painting of that ship (below) by American artist Burnell Poole (1884-1933), a US government artist and a wartime correspondent for Everybody's Magazine. To the right of it, at a distance, can be seen a second dazzle-painted ship.

Burnell Poole, painting of the RMS Mauretania (1919)

That same year, another rendition of the Mauretania was reproduced (below) in the June 1919 issue of a magazine called Printing Art. It was lauded by editors as an effective use of a dazzle motif—

The war has brought out a great many wonderful effects in decoration, illustration, etc., and among these the various uses of the camouflage must be placed early in any list. Naturally this camouflaging of ships has lent itself better to pictorial illustration than to decoration, but in the insert [in this issue, facing page 304] will be seen a decoration adapted from camouflage designs for the cover of a booklet for the Cunard Steam Ship Company, Limited. This booklet, "The War Log of the Mauretania," while small in size, carries on the cover such an appropriate handling of this peculiar design that we are very glad to be able to show it as this time. The production is the work of Gaines Thurman, Inc., of New York City (p. 312).

Cunard Booklet Cover (c1919)

At the time, the Mauretania was transporting Canadian and American soldiers to and back from Europe. Its astonishing complex design was well-known and widely admired. A year before Cunard came out with its war log, a detail of the ship appeared on the cover of Collier's: The National Weekly (June 15, 1918), in a painting by American illustrator Herbert Paus (1880-1946), as shown at the top of this blog post.

Camouflage Artist | Douglas D. Ellington

US Navy camoufleurs in model-making room (1918)

In 2011, in Ship Shape: A Dazzle Camouflage Sourcebook, we published a 1918 US government photograph of World War I ship camouflage artists working in the Design Subsection of the American Navy's marine camouflage unit.

In that photograph (reproduced above), five men are shown constructing wooden ship models, on which would be painted experimental "dazzle camouflage" designs, which in turn would then be tested in an observation theatre. Through notations in the papers of Everett L. Warner, we were able to identify the camoufleurs (from left to right) as Douglas D. Ellington, Kenneth MacIntire, Frederick C. Clayter, Richards, and D. Frank (Sully) Sullivan. We have since learned more about Ellington, MacIntire, Sullivan and Clayter, but Richards remains to identified.

Douglas D. Ellington (1886-1960) was an architect who would later become known for his innovative Art Deco public buildings. Indeed, among the historic attractions of Asheville NC (which we inevitably think of as the location of Black Mountain College) are four buildings he designed: First Baptist Church, Asheville City Hall, S&W Cafeteria, and Asheville High School. There is an extensive online biography of Ellington, posted as an article on North Carolina Architects and Builders: A Biographical Dictionary.

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[Added 18Jun2014] RELEASED FROM NAVAL SERVICE, Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington NC), December 23, 1918—

Washington DC, December 22—Douglas Ellington, of Johnston County, has been released from service in the camouflage department of the navy and has returned to Pittsburgh. He is a professor in the Brezel School of Architecture. Mr. Ellington is the only living American credited with having won the Paris prize in architecture.

Additional Sources