the tragic life of a taxidermist, camoufleur and convict

Above An assemblage by Romainian surrealist Viktor Brauner (1903-1966), titled Wolf Table (using taxidermy bits from a fox, not a wolf), 1939. Other than their shared interest in taxidermy, there is no explicit connection between Brauner and the story of Arthur J. Coleman below.

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In the 1921 Indianapolis city directory, Arthur J. Coleman is listed as a taxidermist (he was the curator at the Indiana Statehouse Museum) and a custodian, with the home address of 337 South State Avenue. James A. Coleman, his father, shared the same residence, as did Arthur’s mother, Nancy S. Coleman.

In connection with his museum position, Coleman was allowed to carry a gun, a revolver in a shoulder holster. In May 1920, he and three companions (including an eighteen-year-old woman named Floy Minck) were returning to Indianapolis at night, when Coleman, who was driving, noticed that an automobile tire was blocking the road. When he stopped to look more closely, he saw that a rope was attached to the tire, and that it was being pulled off from the side. He heard voices in the dark, and saw six men approaching the car. He drew his revolver and fired two rounds. The men fled and Coleman hurriedly drove off.

In September 1920, Floy Edna Minck (1902-1976) married an Indianapolis carpenter named Bernard B. Bartlett. Ten months later, Arthur J. Coleman married a young woman (the same age as Minck) named Elizabeth (Libby) Schmitter. In November of that same year, there was a jury trial in Indianapolis, in which Coleman was accused of threatening to kill Bartlett, because of a dispute about “a girl whom Bartlett later married” (presumably Floy Minck Bartlett). The jury could not agree on a verdict.

Coleman’s marriage to Libby Schwitter Coleman was an unfortunate pairing. It was troubled from the start, and they agreed to separate at the end of the first year. Coleman moved to New Harmony IN, on the Wabash River, while his wife lived twenty miles west in Crossville IL. They had lived apart for about a year, when, according to Coleman, he received a phone message and a letter from his wife, suggesting that they talk about living together again.

On April 26, 1923, Coleman (this is based on his account) drove to Crossville, to talk to his wife about reconciliation at a house where she was then staying (apparently owned by someone named Jeff Young). When he entered the front door, he was struck on the head from behind and fell to the floor unconscious. When he regained consciousness (he testified), he was lying in a room, with a revolver in his hand. His own revolver was still in his shoulder holster. Nearby was the body of his dead wife, who had died from three or four bullet wounds. In a 1923 news article, it was noted (without explanation) that the owner of the house, Jeff Young, is “an inmate of a hospital for the insane in Illinois.” It was also claimed that a man (unnamed) who was in the house at the time of the shooting had “left immediately and was away from [that area] for a year.”

Despite Coleman’s account of what happened, he was arrested at the site for his wife’s murder, and jailed in Carmi, the county seat. On the day after his arrest, his mother visited him at the jail. She later said: “When I pulled Arthur’s head down to kiss him, I felt a bump on his head and noticed blood on my hand as I left the jail.” But that injury was not mentioned in the documentation for his appeal.

Coleman said that, while he was in jail for three weeks, awaiting his court appearance, the sheriff brought a “professional hangman” to his cell, to describe the agony of dying that way. He was then taken to a window, and shown where the scaffolding would be built. He was told: “That’s where we will stretch your damned neck.” He was also warned about the horror of being lynched if an angry mob would storm the jail.

Coleman later described his condition, while awaiting his court date, as being “sick and nervous.” Inspite of having no memory of the shooting, he decided to plead guilty (to avoid the death penalty) when he appeared before a judge on May 19. He was then sentenced to life in prison for a term of ninety-nine years. He spent the next 21 years at the Illinois state prison at Joliet as well as on a prison farm.

[So what does any of this have to do with camouflage? Aha, I thought you’d never ask.]

It seems that during his confinement, Coleman continued his interest in taxidermy, including animal camouflage, sculpture, landscape design, and museum exhibitions. Various people, including other inmates, congressmen, and well-known citizens (soprano Mary Garden being one) spoke in favor of his work. He was permitted to open a shop inside the prison, and “because of his genius,” a campaign was started to allow him to be pardoned. It did not succeed.

When the US entered World War II, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was a further effort to secure Coleman's release in exchange for advising the army on wartime camouflage. An article described him as “one of the best camouflage artists in the United States.” According to another account, he was “a nationally-known taxidermist and artist” who has “taken up camouflaging” and whose “services were wanted to help camouflage coast artillery batteries.” But that appeal was also denied.

In the end, Arthur J. Coleman was not pardoned, but he was released on parole on July 27, 1944, having served 21 years of his life sentence. Thereafter, he earned his living as a professional taxidermist. As late as April 1960, he owned a taxidermy shop (specializing in “game fish and big game mounts”) in Boca Raton FL. 

Below is the most complete source of information about Coleman's life, consisting of two pages in the Indianapolis Times, September 12, 1932, pp. 1 and 3.

SEE ALSO

Nature, Art, and Camouflage (35 min. video talk)

Art, Women’s Rights, and Camouflage (29 min. video talk)

Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage (26 min. video talk)

Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage (28 min. video talk)

fires in American camouflage section buildings in WWI

Moulin de la Galette, Paris

GASOLINE EXPLODES IN CAMOUFLAGE SCHOOL in Seward Gateway Daily Edition (Seward AK), February 2, 1918, p. 4—

PARIS, Feb. 2—A gasoline can exploded this morning as some American soldiers were filling an automobile tank at the famous Moulin de la Galette dancing hall [as pictured above], now used as a camouflage school for the American army. The tank also exploded and two American soldiers were seriously wounded.

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OFFICIAL PAPERS BURNED Mice and Matches Blamed for Fire in Washington, in Indianapolis News (Indianapolis IN), April 6, 1918, p. 9—

WASHINGTON, April 6—Fire of unknown origin last night destroyed the upper floor of a building near the great State, War and Navy Building [as pictured below], occupied by the Navy Bureau of Construction and Repair and the Camouflage Section. Some supplies and papers were burned, but the damage is said to be insignificant.

No one was in the building except a watchman, who thought the flames started in a piles of papers beneath a stairway, and that mice and matches probably were responsible.

State, War and Navy Building, Washington DC

lamb[l]ast / a lone wolf in snow-covered surroundings

WWII Finnish troops in snow-covered surrounding

There is a wartime Boston news report (December 1944) which features an American artist named Nathaniel J[udah] Jacobson (1916-1996), who was a US Army camoufleur. Originally from Boston, he had studied painting at the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, MIT, and at Yale University, where he earned a BFA degree in 1941.

When the US entered World War II at the end of 1941, Jacobson enlisted. In 1944, while stationed in Europe, he was a contributor to the development of white cape coverings for infantry in snow-covered surroundings on the border of Belgium and Germany.

His involvement in all this was reported in the Boston Globe on December 14, 1944, in an article with the headline BOSTON ARTIST AIDS IN SAVING GIS BY SLICK CAMOUFLAGE WORK (pp. 1-2), in which Jacobson is described as being the “boss of fifty Belgian girls as a factory supervisor in a First Army camouflage unit.”

While encamped in the Hurtgen Forest, the American infantry was unprepared for the sudden first snowfall, which left them “unduly exposed to enemy fire against the white background…” As a result, "camouflage engineers were called and given seven days to produce. It meant seven days in which to design, obtain materials, obtain labor and manufacture concealing [white] snow capes for all frontline troops.” Within 24 hours, a factory had been set up, laborers had been hired, and thread and muslin were flown in. “Within 36 hours the first snow cape was rattled off the production line.”

As for Private Jacobson, his “part of the job was training the help, mostly Belgian girls, ironing out the production bottlenecks, and [in] general speeding up” the process. “He did this job with such good effect that by the end of the fifth day—two days ahead of schedule—the much-needed capes were on their way to the boys whose lives depended on them.”

…”Factory jobs are curiously incongruous for many of the men of this battalion, which comprises in addition to the Boston artist [Jacobsen], landscape artisans, cameramen, advertising layout men and former movie directors. Incidently, they camouflaged [the insulated clothing of this correspondent (reporter Iris Carpenter)] against pneumonia—she hopes—a sheepskin coat which they have spotched brown and olive on the skin side. If snow falls she will wear the wool side out and risk observation by nothing more dangerous than the GIs.“

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One week after that article was published, a second news report (written by Hal Boyle) appeared in the Times-Mirror (Warren PA), in which Private First Class Jacobson (apparently newly promoted) is described as “discontented” with his job, and is quoted very candidly. According to him, “I got this job—which I don’t like—because I had picked up some French out of a phrase book and was able to tell the girls what we wanted done.”

“I never even worked in a clothing factory before—never wanted to,” he adds. “…And here I am running one. You sure do strange things in the Army.”

The young Belgian women he supervises, he continued, “…are just like American girls. They never stop talking. And the way they spend their money! One girls just paid 900 francs for a pair of shoes—three weeks salary for one pair of shoes!

They have been going to some American army dances. That’s what they talk about most all day long. They are envious of American girls because they heard American girls could go to dances alone. Here, even if she is 25 years old, a girl can’t go to a dance unless her parents come along, too.”

Looking “moodily” at “the happy humming girls” in his workforce, Jacobson explains: “I am a happily married man—this is no place for me. They should put a single man on this job. But I guess that’s why they put me here—because I am an old married man—and not a wolf.”

In contrast, his asistant and co-worker, Private Donavan Mccomber from Radcliff OH, glanced over the factory workroom, whistled cheerfully, and said:

“Well, so we got to work in a roomful of girls. It ain’t so bad. I can think of a lot worse ways to win the war.”

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Following the war, Jacobson returned to the Boston area, became a research associate at MIT, and embarked on long-term art-and-science color research, including responses to color, and computer modeling. He continued to paint and exhibit, and, in 1975, published a book on color, titled The Sense of Color: A Portfolio in Visuals (Van Nostrand Reinhold).

American Impressionism / Provincetown Camouflage

Below Photograph (c1919) of American artist George Elmer Browne (1871-1946), a Massachusetts-based painter who studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and at the Academie Julian in Paris. He was associated with American Impressionists, such as Edmund Tarbell, Frank W. Benson, and Joseph DeCamp. Reproduced above is one of his finest impressionist paintings (Harbor Scene with Fishing Boats, 1910, Smithsonian American Art Museum). Born in Gloucester MA, around 1918 he acquired 162 Commercial Street in Provincetown, which served as his studio and the West End School of Art. Detailed information can be found online here and here.

In the following news article, it is claimed that Browne had been involved in “camouflage work” for the US Government during World War I, presumably as a civilian, and most likely in connection with ship camouflage.

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CAMOUFLAGE FOR UGLY STANDPIPE TO CHANGE IT TO A THING OF BEAUTY Noted Provincetown Artist Evolves Own Ingenious Plan For Eliminating Unpleasantness From Landscape, in Boston Globe, November 4, 1931—

PROVINCETOWN, Nov 3—Fastidious about its landscape since it has become an art center, Provincetown will have what is thought to be the first camouflaged standpipe in the United States.

Thanks to the initiative and ingenuity of George Elmer Browne, famous artist, the town's new standpipe, instead of being painted black like the old one, will receive a tricky blend of colors, which will render it almost invisible.

The sand dune on which the standpipe is built will melt into the base of the iron structure, as will the shrubery and foliage; then the color will blend upwards into sky tones and cloud tones, so that instead of an eyesore crowning the landscape, a very necessary object will be so painted that it will appear as a thing of beauty.

According to artist Browne, the standpipe will be invisible except when it stands out against the sun, and even then it will not be a very bold silhouette.

At the present time, two standpipes occupy the hill, but the old one, long an eyesore, marring the view of the town from the harbor and detracting from the grandeur of tie towering Pilgrim Monument on Town Hill, will soon come down.

Mr Browne’s studio commands an unobstructed view of the hill of the standpipes. When the new and larger one went up, he began to study the problem of avoiding the uglification.

Having done camouflage work for the Government during the war, he devised his color scheme and presented it to the Town Water Commissioners, with designs worked out in oil.

The artist, at their request, then presented the Commissioners with a scale model of the pipe, from which areas to be colored could be figured.

In coloring the big standpipe. the painters will work from a small sheet iron model. The model is now in the hands of the contractors.

Everett C. Hammond / WWI Boston-area camoufleur

Until a few days ago, I had never heard of a Boston-area artist named Everett C. Hammond, who served as a camoufleur during World War I. While described in newspapers at the time as a “portrait painter” and “well-known local artist,” his artistic expertise seems questionable if judged by the lackluster quality of the single drawing found so far. Reproduced above, it was made while he was serving as a US Army camoufleur in France, and was included as part of a letter to his sister in Boston (as described below in this post). At the time he made this drawing, he appears to have had little training in art—it is amateur at best.

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CORP HAMMOND TELLS OF CAMOUFLAGE WORK, in Boston Evening Globe, February 12, 1919, p. 9—

Corp. Everett C. Hammond, 1st Army Camouflage Service, a Cambridge man and well-known local artist, called at the local army headquarters today for final orders and to pay his respects to [Major] General [Clarence Ransom] Edwards [ranked last in his class at West Point in 1883].

Corp. Hammond went over seas with the 101st Engineers. He was a member of the old 1st Corps of Cadets when it changed to the engineer regiment. When he was overseas a short time, some one in authority learned that he was quite an artist, or rather “that he could paint” and he was shifted to the Camouflage School for further training in natural colors, etc. Then he was assigned to active duty on the fighting fronts, and went through every campaign. He, with others, would lay long stripes of burlap on the ground and paint them so that it would appear like grass or a natural science, when it was stretched over a battery of artillery that was hammering away at the enemy.

He was in every battle of the famed 26th Division [known as the Yankee Division, as commanded by General Edwards], although his official headquarters at all times was at Dijon. He declared that it quite an exploit, and certainly a dangerous and thrilling one, to first paint and then erect the disguises for the guns in the most active sectors.

He is the first of the camouflage men to report to the local offices, and his flaming yellow sleeve designation [a chameleon emblem], underneath a big blue A, excited curiosity.

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BOSTON ARTIST AS CAMOUFLEUR / E.C. Hammond Had Narrow Escape While Hiding Guns With Brush, in Boston Sunday Advertiser and American, March 1919, p. W-7—

More camouflage!

If the war has taught us anything, it has certainly acquainted us thoroughly with the art of camouflage. First it was used In concealing batteries, then to foil the U-boats, and finally came to peaceful pursuits, such as making certain things appear in a somewhat different light than might be otherwise construed—especially the truth.

Our story deals entirely with the first phase of the art—making raging, destructive batteries appear like harmless and aesthetic spots of nature. Something like the demon behind the man with the smiling face.

But now hear a real camouflage artist tell of bona fide camouflage. Listen to descriptions of this art in its original element, and incidentally a few other experiences of this expert camoufeur.

Boston Portrait Painter
By way of introduction, our artist is Corporal Everett C. Hammond. A Boston portrait painter. The war afforded him an opportunity to transfer his peaceful activity to a more fiery environment and he was quick to take advantage of it—enlisting two days after this country declared war. He has just returned to his home in Cambridge—with a thorough training in camouflage, but with an utter ignorance of "Camouflage."

His dally duties perfected him in the former art, but his schooling in the latter has been sadly neglected owing to the association with many clean, manly fellows, whose knowledge on that subject was meagre.

Hammond was among the first camoufleurs to be chosen by the government for this important work abroad. His highly developed training in done colors and natural features of landscapes qualified him for this branch of service with such men as [Homer] Saint-Gaudens, [F. Earl] Christy and [Barry] Faulkner, modern artists of wide popularity.

Was at Seicheprey
He was first with the 101st Engineers, with whom he served at the battle of Seicheprey [on April 20, 1918] and later with the 40th Engineers. Shortly before the battle of Seicheprey his company was engaged in constructing a camouflaged machine gun emplacement which they had half completed when the Boche shelling began. They were forced to abandon this work hurriedly, but not before two of their number had been killed and several wounded. After returning they found this position had been effectively shelled.

Hammond was later placed in charge of the camouflage work of the 130th Field Artillery, which used 75’s and 135mm guns. This unit was particularly active in the Toul sector between Gezencourt and Martincourt.

700 Women Helpers
About 700 French women were engaged during the war in making camouflage materials for the American government. This was done in Nancy and Dijon. Burlap was used principally and was prepared by a coloring process in which numerous natural colors were used. After being dried it was cut into uneven pieces and tied on chicken wire, having the appearance of the vibration and natural color of a grass field.

The colors were selected according to the particular environment, and when the structure was erected about a battery the blend served to conceal it from the enemy.

Each battery occupied an area about 100 feet long and 25 feet wide. This was entirely covered with camouflage raised to a height of twenty feet from the ground. It was done by means of posts surrounding the area at a distance of ten feet apart. These in turn were covered by the vast stretch of burlap colored according to the fields. At a distance this looked like a natural bank. The same was true from above and was indiscernible to the aviator's eye.

Camouflage While You Wait
The extensive operations were not carried on during a quick drive. In such case all guns carried forward their network consisting of burlap and fishnet. The latter was often covered with branches, leaves, etc. In quick drives a gun could be camouflaged in about thirty minutes. Along the established lines it required weeks and often months to construct the camouflage shelter.

The position of batteries were determined by the amount of natural protection, particularly near banks. They were often placed near brush, the effect of the shrubbery being carried out.

Hammond had several narrow escapes, among which was an incident when returning from the inspection of a camouflaged battery. Enemy guns wore searching out the territory, and as he crossed a barren field that section suddenly became the center of the foe's fire. He quickly sprang to a shell hole and was astonished when a dog, evidently a company mascot, came close to his heels. Both remained there until the guns ceased firing.

Another Narrow Escape
Later while he was discussing the camouflage of a certain battery with a comrade a large fragment of shell whizzed by his ear.

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SENDS PENCIL SKETCH OF CHAPLAIN EDWARDS, in Boston Post, April 21 1918, p. 12—

Miss Gladys E. Hammond of 241 Upham Road, Cambridge, received a letter yesterday from her brother, Everett C. Hammond of A Company, 101st Engineers, which contained a pencil sketch of Chaplain Edwards• addressing the men of the regiment before their departure for the front.

“My brother wrote,” said Miss Hammond, “that the engineers have been busy building miles of barbed wire entanglements, doing the work at night. He said that the work would keep the men busy for a long time. This letter was written March 12.”

The sketch shows Chaplain Edwards at the front of the colors, addressing the men. A line under the sketch, quoted as Chaplain Edwards’ words, reads: “I am going to commence the service this morning by reading a poem.”

•This appears to be an error, since I have yet to find any reference to a chaplain named Edwards in the Yankee Division, whereas the unit’s commander was Major General C.R. Edwards. Perhaps the two have been confused.

snake-like sinuous piping / Mark Booth camouflage art

Tgrit © Mark Booth 2016

Recently I ran across the artwork of an Australian artist named Mark Booth. In 2021, he completed the research requirements for a Master of Fine Arts degree at The University of New South Wales. His thesis, titled Sculpture as Artifice: Mimetic Form in the Environment, can be found at his website along with detailed images of related projects.

Among the works you’ll find online is the one reproduced above, a sculpture titled Tigrit (2016). It was made from PVC pipe (commonly used for plumbing) which was covered with a camouflage-patterned vinyl wrap, then mounted on a wall, on a background that consists of a flat version of the same disruption scheme.

In his thesis, Booth refers to this and comparable works as “snake-like sinuous piping.” Many of us—presumably most—have a degree of aversion to snakes, and yet they are also astonishing, in part because their complicated patterns interfere effectively with the challenge of tracking their movements.

When I saw this initially, I thought of online images of a venomous gaboon viper reclining on a forest floor in sub-Saharan Africa. I wouldn’t like to step on that. Or, in the ranks of the nonvenomous, one cannot help but be impressed by the bewildering surface designs on ball pythons (called that because, when threatened, they coil up into a tight ball for protection).

But there are other things that also quickly spring to mind when confrontlng Mark Booth’s sculpture. After all, PVC is plumbing pipe, so it hardly surprising to think of the large intestines or the bowels. At that point scatology raises its head, and who knows where that path might lead.

This work also caught my eye because a few years ago, while making a series of digital montages, I inavertently ended up with Wind Instrument (reproduced below), that was probably inspired by the vagaries of bathroom jokes. Alimentary, my dear Watson.

For a closer look at Mark Booth’s work, visit his Instagram account. There is also online a selection of short, informative videos here.

In the meantime, given that this item originates from Australia, perhaps it would be fitting to mention Tasmania, the famed Australian island state. Here is an newspaper clipping, titled "Artists and Camouflage," as published in the Advocate (Burnie, Tasmania), on July 21, 1937—

“The problem of camouflage in war can only be solved with your help,” said Air Chief Marshall Sir Cyril Newall in addressing the painters at the Royal Academy banquet. “It is notable, however, that it is the academic and orthodox artist who is helping. At first glance we should have expected more help from the unorthodox—the surrealists, super-modernists, post-post-impressionists, post-mortem impressionists, or whatever you call them. These artists appear to me, as a layman, to misrepresent rather than represent the subjects they work upon.” 

Wind Instrument © Roy R. Behrens 2022

 

was ship camouflage determined by artistic trends?

dazzle camouflage

Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Experiencing Architecture. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1964, p. 93—

Two years later [in 1917] the British navy went in for something they called dazzle painting. With the help of black, white and blue paint laid on in abstract figures the great gray battleships were transformed so thoroughly that it was impossible to tell bow from stern or make out contours or shapes. The heavy hulls became light and airy in their new harlequin dress. Incidentally, it is remarkable to see how strongly this painting—seemingly laid on quite at random—was determined by the artistic idiom of the day. This becomes apparent when it is compared with the camouflage painting of the second world war. Where before the colors had been bright they were now muddy, and instead of the straight lines and triangles of the early camouflage there were now sinuous outlines and undulating shapes. 

NOTE: There are two misleading statements in this paragraph: It is suggested that dazzle painting patterns were "laid out quite at random," which may have been true in some small number of cases but certainly not in most. Second, it may or may not be the case that ship camouflage "was determined [a better word is "influenced"] by the artistic idiom of the day" (although that is commonly claimed). In our collection, we may have more photographs of disruptively-camouflaged ships from WWII than from WWI. See also this short video on "embedded figures" in relation to ship camouflage.

Marcel Breuer / smuggling banknotes out of Germany

Bauhaus, Gestalt and Problem Solving

Bauhaus, Gestalt and Problem Solving: Thinking Outside the Box , a recent online video talk, includes an old familiar joke about a factory worker who left work each day with a wheelbarrow full of packing peanuts. The joke is a prime example of a switch of attention (as in, for example, misdirection in magic acts). The worker was suspected of smuggling factory components, but nothing was found. In the end it was determined that he was stealing wheelbarrows. I was reminded of this when I ran across the story of how Bauhaus furniture designer and architect Marcel Breuer succeeded in smuggling banknotes through customs when he left Germany for London. 

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Jack Pritchard, View from a Long Chair (London : Routledge & Kagan Paul, 1984), p.111—

Carola Giedion [wife of Sigfried Giedion] and Sybil Moholy [wife of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy] were sharing a flat [in London] for a while, and Sybil had received a book from [Marcel] Breuer which , when opened, was found to be [Adolf Hitler’s famous book] Mein Kampf. It was worse than a poor joke, she and Carola were furious and threw it away wtth the rubbish. Breuer arrived soon after, apparently happy at being away from Nazi Germany, only to find two furious dames attacking him wtth no mercy. When he could get a word in he explained that, in order to get some of his money through German Customs, he thought it would be a bright idea to interleave their leader’s great book with banknotes. They would surely not examine it with any great care. There was immediate pandemonium, all rushed down, hoping the rubbish had not yet been taken away. When they found the book, all was forgiven.

magic motorways / camouflage / norman bel geddes

Christopher Innes, Designing Modern America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005, p. 147—

During [World War II] the army borrowed part of the Futurama model [designed for the 1939 New York World's Fair by Norman Bel Geddes] for a camouflage school, where it was used to demonstrate techniques of deceptive coloration and the effectiveness of visual illusion.

In addition to his Futurama landscape being used in the camouflage school, Bel Geddes himself designed camouflage patterns for military vehicles and aircraft.

dazzle camouflage meets John Cage's chess pieces

Below is an excerpt from “Composing Chess,” an essay by Paul Franklin and Lowell Cross, as published in Larry List, ed., The Imagery of Chess Revisited. New York: George Braziller, 2005. The book’s cover is reproduced above. 

The passage refers to a musical composition (embedded within a painting) by American composer John Cage titled Chess Pieces (1944). It suggests a possible link between the chessboard pattern of Cage’s painting and geometric (sometimes checkerboard) color schemes used for so-called dazzle patterns used in World War I and II ship camouflage. If there was in fact a link, the writers surmise, the younger Cage may have learned about "high difference" camouflage from his father, an inventor named John Milton Cage, Sr. The extent to which wartime camouflage was “Cubist-inspired” (a common claim) has long been debated.

•••

Even though neither the structure nor the mechanics of Cage’s score refer specifically to chess, in choosing Chess Pieces as his title, the composer punningly associated its twenty-two movements (pieces) with the pieces of the game. The visual prominence of the notes in the painting also suggests a correlation between the shorthand language of musical notation and that of chess notation. The sixty-four-square chessboard format of the artwork reiterates these ideas. Sixty-four became sacrosanct for Cage in the early 1950s, when he embraced chance operations derived from the sixty-four symbolic hexagrams found in the ancient Chinese I Ching (Book of Changes) as his principal method of composing. He later identified the rigor of chess as “a balance with my use of chance operations.” In addition to the checkerboard pattern of Chess Pieces, the white and black inks Cage used for his musical notations evoke the common colors of the game’s two opposing armies, not to mention the palette of the piano keyboard on which the notes were meant to be played. This alternating gridlike color scheme also calls to mind Cubist- inspired “dazzle” camouflage developed during World War I and redeployed in World War II to disguise naval vessels. Repeating geometric schemes of highly contrasting tonal values, often black and white, applied by artists known as camoufleurs created dramatic optical illusions that prevented ships from being targeted. In Chess Pieces, the staves and musical notes function similarly, veiling the chessboard beneath their shimmering warp and woof. Cage may have been familiar with dazzle camouflage thanks to his father, an inventor who obtained patents for submarine air-delivery, steering, and propulsion systems just before World War I and during World War II researched and developed, with his son’s assistance, a radarlike system to help pilots see through fog. This activity constituted the younger Cage’s sole contribution to the war effort; in late 1942 or early 1943, he received a Class III-A deferment from the draft (“hardship for dependents”) due to the ill health of his wife, Xenia. An avowed pacifist and anarchist in later years, Cage condemned the conflict, admitting: “As a child I was very much impressed by the notion of turning the other cheek. You know, if someone struck me on one cheek, I actually did turn the other cheek. I took that seriously.” 

•••

Mrs. P.R. Woodhouse (source unknown)—
A hefty whaler, after some discussion with [British missionary Samuel] Marsden, remarked: “Your religion teaches that if a man is hit on one cheek, he will turn the other.” And he hit Marsden on the right cheek. Marsden obediently offered his left cheek and received a second blow. “Now,” said Marsden, “I have obeyed my Master’s commands. What I do next, he left to my own judgment. Take this.” And he knocked the man down.  

RELATED LINKS ship camouflage online video talks

blending / assuming the look of an overturned stump

Above  Cartoon from Lilliput Magazine, date and artist unknown.

•••

Arthur Henry Howard Heming, The Drama of the Forests, Romance and Adventure.  Garden City: Doubleday, Page and Co, p. 61—

As regards trailing game, whether large or small, he [a Canadian Native American] cautioned me to watch my quarry carefully, and instantly to become rigid at the first sign that the game was about to turn round or raise its head to peer in my direction. More than that, I should not only remain motionless while the animal was gazing toward me, but I should assume at once some form that suggested the character of the surrounding trees or bushes or rocks. For example, among straight-boled, perfectly vertical trees, I should stand upright; among uprooted trees, I should assume the character of an overturned stump, by standing with inclined body, bent legs, and arms and fingers thrust out at such angles as to suggest the roots of a fallen tree. And he added that if I doubted the wisdom of such an act, I should test it at a distance of fifty or a hundred paces, and prove the difficulty of detecting a man who assumed a characteristic landscape pose among trees or rocks. That was years before the World War had brought the word camouflage into general use; for as a matter of fact, the forest Indians had been practicing camouflage for centuries and, no doubt, that was one reason why many of the Indians in the Canadian Expeditionary Force did such remarkable work as snipers.

the organizing principles that underlie all camouflage

Above and below Still excerpts from Art, Design and Gestalt Theory: the film version (2023), a film about the perceptual organizing principles that are fundamental to human vision, including camouflage.

camouflage assisted him in making vast theatre murals

Above Ship camouflage artist James Daugherty in his studio.

•••

Publisher’s Weekly, October 26, 1929, pp. 275-276—

…But the new art was on the threshold. [American painter James] Daugherty read C. Lewis Hind's The Post Impressionists [1911] and painting seemed to open up new life, new inspiration, new adventure, and he went modern with a vengeance. This artistic regeneration served him in good stead when the war broke. He went into service, in ship camouflage, and spent arduous days and nights in the shipyards and crowded harbors among all the craft of the world, superintending the drawing and painting of a cubist's picture all around a battered, gun-mounted freighter that was loading shells, food, autos, coal and iron rails, sinking lower in the water with every ton of freight and sailing in twelve hours.

Returning to New York was like starting all over again beginning at Greenwich Village. Before the war he had married, and the Daughertys now took a studio apartment at 59 Washington Square that looked across the park, through the arch and directly up Fifth Avenue. The camouflage painting came in handy in painting in an incredibly short time, vast murals in new movie theaters.

Chagall as a camoufleur in Russia during World War I

Above Marc Chagall, The Birthday (1915). Museum of Modern Art. Public domain.

•••

Raymond Nacenta, School of Paris: the painters and the artistic climate of Paris since 1910. Greenwich CT: New York Graphic Society, 1960, page 284—

[Marc] Chagall returned to Russia in 1914, where he was married to Bella, whose love is celebrated in so many of his paintings. He served in a camouflage unit during the war and, after the Revolution, was for a time Commissar for the Fine Arts in Vitebsk.  

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

 

Cocteau / just say he was wearing camouflage gear

Above Anon, detail of embroidered textile, 16th century Italy. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain.

•••

Dan Franck, Bohemian Paris: Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, and the Birth of Modern Art. New York: Grove Books, 2001—

[French surrealist writer Jean] Cocteau opened his closet door, and this particular evening he chose the outfit which seemed most appropriate to him: a costume to be worn in a ballet he was preparing for  [Sergei] Diaghilev [founder of the Ballets Russes]. It was a clown's costume, composed of gaily colored trousers and a shirt, in vivid diamond shapes. He put it on. Just as he was leaving, he realized that walking about Paris in the middle of the war dressed in such a manner might be a little awkward. So he hid the disguise under a long coat. It still looked a little strange around the ankles, but if anyone asked him, he would just say that he was wearing camouflage gear . . . [p. 222]

[Jean Paulhan:] War camouflage was the work of the cubists: it was also, if you like, their revenge.

bandits in warpaint hold up New York restaurant / 1928

Painting by George Catlin

Above George Catlin, Portrait of Blue Medicine (Toh-to-wah-kon-da-pee), Medicine Man of the Eastern Sioux Dakota tribe. 19th Century. Collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Public domain.

•••

REDSKINS GET $1,000 Loot. Brooklyn Gunmen Paint Faces Then Stage Holdup. East Liverpool Review. East Liverpool OH, July 16, 1928, p. 8—

NEW YORK, July I6—Chicago gun­men may claim the distinction of hav­ing first introduced the submachine gun into the hold up “racket,” but to Brooklyn goes credit for the first use of camouflage by stick up men. Three bandits today entered a State Street restaurant with their faces dis­guised with paint used in a manner like that employed formerly only by Indians on the warpath. The paint was streaked over their faces in weird patterns. The leader wore a heavy black hue under one eye, while the rest of his face was streaked a brilliant red. The proprietor and his staff were so astonished that the bandits es­caped with $1,000 in cash and jewelry before an alarm was raised. 

cubism and camouflage / oscillation of appearances

Above Simay Imre, Subscribe to the Liberty Loan (World War I French poster), 1918. University of Illinois Archives, Public Domain.

•••

Wylie Sypher, Rococo to Cubism in Art and Literature. New York: Vintage Books, 1960—

To prove that art and life intersect, that thought enters things, that appearance and reality collide, or coincide, at the points we call objects, the cubist relied on certain technical devices: a breaking of contours, the passage, so that a form merges with the space about it or with other forms; planes or tones that bleed into other planes and tones; outlines that coincide with other outlines, then suddenly reappear in new relations; surfaces that simultaneously recede and advance in relation to other surfaces; parts of objects shifted away, displaced, or changed in tone until forms disappear behind themselves. This deliberate “oscillation of appearances” gives cubist art its high “iridescence” [p. 270].

It has been said that the great cubist achievement was camouflage [p. 299].

RELATED LINKS

 Cubism and Camouflage

Cook: The Man Who Taught Gertrude Stein to Drive

Art, Design and Gestalt Theory: The Film Version

Art, Design and Gestalt Theory: The New Film Version

Recently completed: Our most popular video talk, titled Art, Design and Gestalt Theory: The Film Version (40 mins). It traces the emergence of Gestalt psychology (c1910), as well as its connections to holism, Taoism, yin and yang, displacements of attention, contrast illusions, color, camouflage, graphic design, and architecture. Ideal for classroom screenings, and library discussion events. Non-monetized, free full online access for anyone at YouTube.

video on creative process in science, art and humor

free online video / full view

 

deceptive non-service in the WWII camouflage corps

G. Burr Inwood, cartoon from Life, 1917.

•••

Lee Hall, Wallace Herndon Smith: paintings. University of Washington Press, 1987, pp. 60 and 64—

On Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Smiths were entertaining friends at lunch in their comfortable home in the country. A neighbor who had not been included in the party rushed in shouting, “Turn on the radio, turn on the radio.” Conversation stopped and while the guests tried to make sense of the neighbor’s urgent cries, he added, “They’re bombing us.” The Smiths and their guests, knowing the interloper’s proclivities for alcohol, assumed that he was well under the influence. When the message bearer dived under the piano, still wailing, they were prepared to dismiss his cries as an inept joke among joking neighbors. Soon, however, they were persuaded to tune in the radio and, with millions of other Americans, they learned of Pearl Harbor.

Talk of war—of Hitler and Europe, of England and of the United States’ loyalties—hummed in Connecticut as elsewhere. But even so, the news of the Japanese attack staggered the revellers. The next morning Wally telephoned a friend from Princeton who lived in Washington and who, to Wally's vague recollection, worked for the government. Through this friend, Wally managed to make an appointment with yet another friend who, he believed, "was handing out commissions." He flew to Washington and returned to Connecticut as a captain in the Camouflage Corps. “I was given a costume [a uniform],” he said, “but I never wore it.”…

The Camouflage Corps, to which Wally had been assigned as a commissioned officer, was by this time stationed in Missouri. Captain Smith was not called up to serve, but he chose nonetheless to mingle from time to time with his fellow officers. “The Camouflage Corps,” according to Kelse [Smith, his wife], “was a joke. They fought the war in the bars of the Chase and Park Plaza hotels.” 

restaurant robbery and a camouflaged futurist coffin

Above Anon, cartoon from The Sketch (London), 1919.

•••

REDSKINS GET $1,000 LOOT. Brooklyn Gunmen Paint Faces Then Stage Holdup. East Liverpool Review. East Liverpool OH, July 16, 1928, p. 8—

NEW YORK, July I6—Chicago gun­men may claim the distinction of hav­ing first introduced the submachine gun into the hold-up “racket,” but to Brooklyn goes credit for the first use of camouflage by stick up men. Three bandits today entered a State Street restaurant with their faces dis­guised with paint used in a manner like that employed formerly only by Indians on the warpath. The paint was streaked over their faces in [a] weird pattern. The leader wore a heavy black hue under one eye, while the rest of his face was streaked a brilliant red. The proprietor and his staff were so astonished that the bandits es­caped with $1,000 in cash and jewelry before an alarm was raised. 

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

 

Nichols brothers / NY ship camoufleurs during WWI

Hobart Nichols

Above We have met [Henry] Hobart Nichols Jr. (1869-1962) before, when in 2019 we mentioned him in a post in reference to his service as a civilian camouflage artist during World War I.

His brother (pictured below) was also an accomplished artist, Spencer Baird Nichols (1875-1950). Both resided in Lawrence Park, an artists’ colony near Bronxville NY. His brother was also a civilian ship camoufleur, both of them being affiliated with the Marine Camoufleurs of the US Shipping Board, Second District, a section that was headed by William Andrew MacKay.

•••

MR. HOBART NICHOLS TALKS TO NONDESCRIPT CLUB
Bronxville Review (Bronxville NY) April 11, 1919, p. 1—

Mr. Hobart Nichols [American illustrator and landscape painter] of this village talked most entertainingly to the ladies of the Nondescript Club, at the regular weekly meeting on Tuesday, on the subject of camouflage. Mr. Nichols was connected with the camouflage department of the United States Navy. He illustrated his remarks by drawings of his own, and by various miniature camouflaged ships. He made it quite clear how the effects produced render good aim at a camouflaged vessel most impossible. The remarkable showing of less than one per cent of ships sunk, demonstrated the value of the work.

Spencer Nichols

 

correction of misattribution of magazine cover image

So at last the mystery has been solved. In September 2017, we blogged about an illustration of a dazzle-camouflaged ship that was published on the cover of the December 1918 issue of Sunset: The Pacific Monthly. It's quite a stunning image, and the magazine lists the artist as Harold von Schmidt, which we at first accepted as fact. But we began to have second thoughts, because if you look closely at the lower left corner, the artist has signed the painting as "Bull," not "von Schmidt." So, in the earlier post, we listed the names of both artists. 

As of yesterday, we have resolved the misattribution. The magazine was in error when it listed Von Schmidt as the artist. Instead it was the work of Charles Livingston Bull (1874-1932). In the process of reading the text of a von Schmidt exhibition catalog (John M. Carroll, Von Schmidt: The Complete Illustrator. Fort Collins CO: Old Army Press, 1973), we ran across the following note—

"Sunset Magazine December 1918, Cover: 'His Imperial Majesty's Peace Ship Camouflage!' (This picture is in dispute. Although the artist claims he did not do the painting, the magazine issue gives him credit for having done it.)"

Peanut Prieto selects a Chandler Coupe closed car

Humorist Kayem Grier (1920)

Above We recently found a photograph of a popular newspaper columnist (and erstwhile stage comedian) who was well-known shortly after World War I, at a time when it was still permissible to lampoon emigrant accents. His name was Kenneth M. Grier, but his pen name was Kayem Grier. He wrote a syndicated column, featured in various national newspapers, titled Peanut Prieto, in which (like Chico Marx) he mimicked the errors and accent of an Italian emigrant. Published below is the text of one of his columns, in which he talks about wartime camouflage in relation to (as might be expected) the use of cosmetics by women.

According to the news story accompanying the photograph, the Salt Lake City native was “not only a humorous writer. He is one of the most experienced motorists in the state…[Earlier] he became widely known to thousands of followers of the auto racing game throughout the middle west. In 1914, he toured the middle west with a racing car, driving half-mile tracks and thrilling thousands of visitors at state and county fairs in a series of sensational races. In the process, he was the owner of twenty-nine different kinds of cars. The article announces that he had selected a Chandler coupe “as his ultimate choice of an automobile.” The photograph was published in the Deseret News (Salt Lake City UT), May 29, 1920, p. iv., with the headline Peanut Pietro Selects Chandler Closed Car.

•••

Kayem Grier [Kenneth M. Grier], PEANUT PIETRO, in Irvingville Gazette, November 19, 1920—

Other day I toll thy boss bouta somating wot I tink. And he say to me you no better speaka dat way out loud eef you lika to stay een deesa place longa time. He say, "Eet you roasta ladies, Pietro, ees alla same keeka dirt on your own grave."

But wot he tella me ees no scare ver mooch. Eef I lika somating I like plenta mooch and eef I no lika I gotta deesgust. So I speaka wot I tink eef ees breaka my neck, I no care. When da war broka out somebody eenvent camouflage for maka every ting looka wot aint. Weeth da camouflage one ship ees looka lika two ship and two ship looka lika no ship. Weeth plenta paint everyting ees made for looka deefrence—jusa for foola other guy.

And now when da war ees queet some da women keepa right on do sama ting. I see one woman other day weeth so moocha paint on could foola U-boat. Eef we use so' moocha black powder on da Germans as women use white powder on da face mebbe we gotta heem licked long time ago.

Seema lika only ting some cheecken do now ees scrubba da nose white, paint da cheek peenk, maka red lips and putta google een da eye weeth black stick. Lika data way da face stick out lika sore thumb. And when ees come on da street she maka more noise as da dire engine.

One girl tella me she jusa putta nough on for stoppa da shine. She gotta so mooch on I feegure mebbe she tink her face ees headlight, dunno. Longa time ago I reada some place dat da pen ees stronga like da sword, or somating. For way some da women looka now I feegare da powder puff ees greater as da wash rog. But dunno—

Wot you tink?

is crime not to be depended upon / who can we trust?

Above A pictorial advertisement for a Victorian-era British illusionist, T[homas] Elder Hearn.

•••

Alas! This is An Age of Ingenious Camouflage, in Salina Journal (Salina KS), January 17, 1920—

New York—This is an age of camouflage. Yes; of course the word has been overworked. Maybe it isn't used any more in our best journalistic circles. But it's an age of camouflage just the same. Now take the case of John Smith of the East end, up for examination in a case of assault and battery. He did not deny that Emil Emilson hired him to beat up Joe Lansky or that he got $5 from Emil for beating up Joe. But he strongly denied that he did beat up Joe. Finally they got the truth out of John, who thus explained the seeming inconsistencies of his statement:

“When a fellow is hired to do up another guy he goes and tells him about it. Then they get together and they stick court plaster all over the guy's face and tie a bandage around his head with a little beef blood showing through and put his arm in a sling. The guy who wants him done up looks him over and thinks he got his money's worth.”

Now this is art, but is it honest? Is crime not to be depended upon to be what it seems? We know that our leather chairs are not made of hide, but of old rubber boots and condensed milk. We know that chicken salad is frequently made of veal. We understand that our sealskin coats are made from the fur of the muskrat and that our linen is cotton. Knowing, nobody cares. But it had been supposed that crime was above substitution. Here we have a detailed description of camouflage assault.

When thugs become too ingenious to kick in the ribs of the persons they are paid to assault and resort to camouflage to make the patron think he is getting something just as good, whither are we drifting? 

Camouflage Cartoons Archive online at ScholarWorks

Online Camouflage Cartoons Archive

How wonderful! I couldn’t be more pleased with the latest efforts of the ScholarWorks staff at the University of Northern Iowa’s Rod Library. For decades, while I was researching the subject of art and camouflage (both zoological and military), I also gradually built up a collection of camouflage-themed cartoons, especially those that date from before, during and after World War I. Because of concurrent events at the time, the cartoons sometimes also comment on the Armory Show, Women’s Suffrage, and Prohibition. The Rod Library has now posted this collection online as a Camouflage Cartoons Archive. My own particular favorites are those of Maurice Ketten.