Above This image is cited on Wikipedia Commons as a portrait of Swedish-American artist Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt. An etching dated 1935, it is presumably a self-portrait since he is also listed as having made it (yet, oddly the signature seems to read Schneider). It is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chicago Society of Etchers. 
Portrait of B.J.O. Nordfeldt
We have blogged about Nordfeldt before, and with good reason. As we noted in an earlier post in 2019, Nordfeldt designed ship camouflage for the US Shipping Board during World War I in San Francisco. He was a fascinating character, with an all but unbelievable breadth of interests and capabilities. In addition to his involvement in ship camouflage, he was also an early participant in the art colony at Provincetown MA (he designed sets for the Provincetown Players) and eventually settled in New Mexico, where he was associated with the Taos Society of Artists.
Recently we ran across a news article about an exhibition of his artwork, titled “Nordfeldt Shows Interesting Work” in the Oakland Tribune, November 10, 1918, p. 6. That review concludes with this curious note:
Mr. Nordfeldt is in San Francisco at the rquest of the government, in charge of the camouflage department of the shipyards.
Would he tell us, if we cross our hearts not to tell, what the plan is that he and his conferes are following with the ships that go down to the sea?
There are those among us—good Americans at that—who are wondering “Who’s looney now?”
The USS Western Spirit (shown below) was most likely one of the ships whose dazzle camouflage Nordfeldt was responsible for.
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| USS Western Spirit c1918 (digital coloring) |
RELATED LINKS
Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work?
Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage
Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage
