interview with camouflage scholar Camilla Wilkinson

In a July 2020 blog post, we shared a major article on World War I dazzle-patterned ship camouflage. It was written by British architect Camilla Wilkinson, who is the granddaughter of artist and poster designer Norman Wilkinson. He was the person who in 1917 successfully urged the adoption of high difference or disruptive ship camouflage [*see note below], which has since been referred to as dazzle camouflage. Her article, titled "Distortion, Illusion and Transformation: the Evolution of Dazzle Painting, a Camouflage System to Protect Allied Shipping from Unrestricted Submarine Warfare, 1917–1918," was published in Studia de Arte et Educatione, Number 14 (Krakow, Poland), 2019. The full text can be accessed online.

More recently, we’ve also found that Camilla Wilkinson, who is a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster, has since been featured in a 27-minute video interview (which can also be accessed online). The interview was produced in connection with a camouflage-related artwork exhibition at Quay Arts on the Isle of Wight, during March through June 2021. Titled Dazzle & Disrupt, it showcased the work of two artists, Jeannie Driver and Lisa Traxler.

* This links to an online video on the use of embedded figures in the design of dazzle camouflage. Unfortunately, as has been aptly noted in viewers' comments, I inadvertently stumbled into "horse crap" when, in the film's narration, I repeated the erroneous claim that American soldiers were called "doughboys" during WWI because of the color of their infantry uniforms. Instead, it seems that they had been called that since the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, and it may instead be related to the color of adobe bricks—its origin is uncertain. Mea culpa.