Mary Sperling McAuliffe, When Paris sizzled: the 1920s Paris of Hemingway, Chanel, Cocteau, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and their friends. Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016, page 52—
Monument by WWI camoufleurs Mare, Süe and Jaulmes
Given the [Paris WWI Victory] parade’s many admirable qualities, it was unfortunate that the work of art meant to commemorate the war’s fallen soldiers at the Fétes de la Victoire came to a bad end. The privilege of creating a memorial for the war dead had gone to three men: the painter André Mare, along with his associates, architect Louis Süe and designer Gustave Jaulmes, all three former members of wartime camouflage units at the front. Their creation [shown above, on July 14, 1919, to the right of the Arc de Triomphe], a huge gilded cénotaph, or tomblike monument, thrust upward in the form of a gigantic bier, its sides decorated with Winged Victories, each backed by a pair of real wings from French warplanes. It had been a mammoth undertaking and was unquestionably meant to be patriotic, but critics fiercely derided it as Germanic or “Boche” art. Mare was known for his Cubist style—indeed, he had been painting French artillery with Cubist designs when he was badly wounded at the front—and “l’affaire du cénotaphe” was immediately perceived by Mare’s supporters as an attack by traditionalists on Cubism.
RELATED LINKS
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)
