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| Frederic C. Clayter / 1918 |
Earlier, we had unearthed a wartime government photograph of Clayter and others in the camouflage “model-making shop” In Washington DC, but we must not have known much more than that. In CAMOUPEDIA: a compendium of research on art, architecture and camouflage (2009), there is no biographical entry for him, although his name is listed in the caption for that photograph.
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| Clayter, working as a camoufleur in Washington DC |
The above portrait photograph of him appeared in The Gazette Times (Pittsburgh, December 22, 1918, p. 1). The headline reads: CAMOUFLEUR IN US NAVY RETURNS TO INDUSTRIAL ART DEPARTMENT AT PITT. Professor Clayter, the article states, is—
head of industrial art education in the University of Pittsburgh, [and] has returned to the School of Education after having served in the camouflage section of the United States Navy. He enlisted in the navy last spring and received a leave of absence from the university…While in the navy he was associated with several well-known artists who were engaged in the same work.
Clayter was originally from Muskegon MI. In a newspaper obituary, he is described as a “master craftsman and jewelry maker,” who had studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, and had been awarded a fellowship at the L.C. Tiffany Foundation in New York. He also studied goldsmithing in England. As a professor, he had taught at the University of Pittsburgh from 1916 to 1921, and at the Carnegie Mellon University from 1921 to 1956. In 1953, he was designated Pittsburgh Artist of the Year.
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In the photograph below (the same photograph as before, but cropped differently) four camoufleurs are pictured. They are (left to right) Kenneth MacIntire, Frederic C. Clayter, someone named Richards, and an artist named D. Frank (Sully) Sullivan (1892-1967). The only one yet to be identified is Richards.
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| Clayter (rear center) in model-making studio |
According to an article in the Pittsburgh Daily Post (August 11, 1919, p 16)—
Sullivan had charge of public school industrial arts in Boston before the war and has just been discharged from the service where he was employed as a camouflage artist in Washington DC.
A few weeks in advance of that article, another notice (which includes a photograph of Sullivan, as shown below) had appeared in the Gazette Times (Pittsburgh, July 6, 1919), with the headline BOSTON MAN APPOINTED EXTENSION WORK CHIEF IN PITTSBURGH ACADEMY. It reads—
The appointment of [D. Frank] Sullivan of Boston as director of extension work for the Pittsburgh Academy has been announced by Director Herbert G. Lytle of the local school. Mr. Sullivan was recently relased from the Navy, where he was assigned to the headquarters of the naval camouflage department. He is a native of Massachusetts, and a graduate of the Massachusetts Normal Art School. He has been a member of the faculty of this school and of the Parlin School of Everett MA. Just before entering the service he was head of the department of mechanical drawing and drafting in the Pittsburgh Academy.
D. Frank Sullivan / 1919
In later years, Sullivan appears to have taught commercial art at Connelley Vocational School in Pittsburgh. In an article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette (March 30, 1951) titled RESCUE OF SUSANNA, it is reported that Sullivan was the owner of a painting by Allesandro Pomi (1890-1976) titled Susanna. A month ago, the article states—
fire swept Mr. Sullivan’s studio in the Whitfield Building, East End, and destroyed practically everything. But Susanna was saved. He carried her out himself…
Alessandro Pomi, Susanna (193
