Above One of ninety posters designed by graphic design students at the University of Northern Iowa, to advertise an upcoming talk on WWI ship camouflage by RISD scholar Claudia Covert. This is one of three posters designed by Stephanie Davison. Copyright © 2012 by the designer. All rights reserved.
***
Anon, “Vision and Cubist Art” in the New York Tribune, May 8, 1918, p. 10 (quoted from the Chicago Tribune)—
While aboard a ferry boat that ploughed the raging North River we observed several liners camouflaged to resemble cubist paintings. A great light dawned on us. The object was to render the ships invisible. Suddenly we realized why we never were able to see anything in the cubist exhibit.
***
Arthur Stanley Riggs, With Three Armies On and Behind the Western Front. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1918, pp. 17-18—
The ship herself was not painted a uniform war gray, but with a bluish-gray as a background, she was literally covered, hull, superstructure, funnels, spars, boats, everything with bilious green and red-lead square, set damond-wise—camouflage at sea. When coming aboard a young airplane engine expert, with the rank of a Lieutenant-Commander of the Royal Naval Reserves, shivered at this hideous pleasantry, and all the way across missed meals and kept away from the bluest part of the smoking room.