Edwin Howland Blashfield / was he a ship camoufleur

Edwin Howland Blashfield

During his life time, American artist Edwin Howland Blashfield (1848-1936) was typically referred to as “the dean of American muralists.” 

We have mentioned him twice in earlier blog posts, because of his connection to the American Camouflage Corps, a civilian camouflage group that was initiated in 1917 by muralist Barry Faulkner and sculptor Sherry Edmundson Fry. But if he had any involvement in ship camouflage, we were not aware of that.

Here’s what we found: In an obituary in The Quincy Evening News (Quincy MA) on October 13, 1936, an article titled CAMOUFLAGER OF WARSHIPS DIES AT CAPE SUMMER HOME stated that Blashfield was “in charge of camouflaging US vessels during the World War.”

The article goes on to claim that “On the advice of President Wilson, the war department in 1917 placed Blashfield in charge of camouflaging American ships traversing the submarine zones. Blashfield was awarded the Legion of Honor medal by the French government.” 

Really? That’s amazing. In fifty-five years of researching and writing about ship camouflage, we don't recall any other mention of Edwin Blashfield in connection to ship camouflage? Additional digging may be in store.

This is what we knew before: that Faulkner and Fry “were the prime movers in the American camouflage. They enlisted the aid of others—Walter Hale, Edwin Blashfield, J. Alden Weir and men of similar distinction and called a meeting…Mr. Blashfield was made chairman and Mr. Fry secretary. The Washington was notified, and an appreciative letter returned from the office of the Chief of Staff.”

Beyond his elusive connection to wartime camouflage, Blashfield was primarily known as one of the country's leading muralists. In 1893 in Chicago, he designed the dome of one of the buildings at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. H also painted the murals on the central dome of the Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress.

Blashfield mural in Iowa State Capitol [detail]

In 1915, he created a large mural (see detail below), titled Westward (14 feet high by 40 feet wide), in the State Capitol of Iowa that was intended to portray Manifest Destiny. It was, in Blashfield’s words, “a symbolical presentation of the Pioneers led by the spirits of Civilization and Enlightenment to the conquest by cultivation of the Great West.” There may be few better phrases than “conquest by cultivation” to describe the fate of indigenous wildlife and peoples, and the on-going current decline of the region’s livability, not by armed raids but by poisons.

RELATED LINKS    

Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? /  Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage /  Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage /  Optical science meets visual art /  Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness /  Under the big top at Sims' circus