WWI camoufleur / penniless and nearly dispossessed

Camoufleur Frank H. Schwarz

We’ve blogged about American artist / camoufleur Frank H. Schwarz once before, but no doubt he deserves another round of applause. I wish I could tell you where we found this newspaper headshot of him, with the headline WINS PRIX DE ROME, and the brief notice below. The date is 1921, and his name is incorrectly spelled as Schwartz (which we have corrected below). Here it is—

The story of Frank Schwarz, twenty-six-year-old artist of Greenwich Village, New York City, reads more like a novel or play than a real true account. For Schwarz, who was penniless and about to be dispossessed from his $12-a-month “studio,” is today the most talked of person in the world of art. He has won the most coveted of art awards, the Prix de Rome, which is a three-year fellowship in the American Academy of Art in Rome, carrying with it transportation expenses and an annuity of $1,000 during the three-year course. Schwarz won the award with his painting A Tribute to Heroism. He is a native of Chicago and studied art there, working in cheap restaurants in order to earn his meals and a dollar or two for lodgings. He is a war veteran, having served in France as a member of the [US Army] camouflage section.