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.