Milwaukee illustrator William J. Aylward during WWI

Captain William J. Aylward

Until recently, I don't think I had heard of American artist William J. Aylward (1875-1956). I should have, since he was born and raised in Milwaukee, where I lived and taught for a decade. On the other hand, he left Milwaukee for the East as early as 1903, and his prominence was diminished because, throughout his career, he was dismissed as an illustrator (a commercial or advertising artist) not as a privileged fine artist.

It was interesting to find that Aylward was the son of a Milwaukee Great Lakes ship captain, which explains in part his lifelong fascination with ships and related nautical themes. He served in World War I, not as a camouflage artist, but (as shown in the photograph above) as an official government war artist, which means that he was assigned to complete onsite drawings and paintings of wartime settings and events.

Back in Milwaukee, long before WWI broke out, he had been associated with illustrator Arthur Becher, with whom he was one of the founders of the Milwaukee Art Students League. Later known as the Milwaukee Art Society, among its well-known members were Edward Steichen, Carl Sandburg (Steichen’s brother-in-law), and the painter and sculptor Louis Mayer. Together, Becher and Aylward decided to study illustration with Howard Pyle’s school in Wilmington NJ. Soon after, their lifelong careers began as two of the country’s finest magazine illustrators.

William J. Aylward

Throughout his life, Aylward produced illustrations for such famous books as Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jack London’s The Sea Wolf, and various others. His wartime work was especially accomplished. Reproduced above is his painting of American troops on the move in France during WWI, with a camouflaged truck in the foreground. Below are three full-color paintings (watercolor and charcoal) of wartime harbor settings, completed in France in 1919. Included in each are portions of a camouflaged ship. 

William J. Aylward

William J. Aylward

William J. Aylward

Camoufleur John Wilde in Walter SH Hamady's books

Above Page spread from Reeve Lindberg, John's Apples (Perishable Press, 1995), a Walter Hamady letterpress book, with full-color paintings of apples by John Wilde [WILL-dee].

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John Wilde: Recent Work, April 10-May 3, 2003. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2003, p. 4—

His [Wilde’s] art interests developed early, as he recalled in 1986: “I have always loved to draw and paint ever since junior high school in Milwaukee. I was particularly fond of drawing imaginary cities, which I then erased and re-created.” In 1938 Wilde enrolled in the art department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied human anatomy with Roland Stebbins and drawing with American Scene painter James Watrous. Shortly after he graduated, in 1942, Wilde was drafted into the army and served four years drawing camouflage and modeling terrain maps for various units (including the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS [precursor to the CIA]), while also meticulously detailing his disgust and dismay with wartime in a 275-page sketchbook. 

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Below Page spread from Walter Hamady and John Wilde, A Hamady Wilde Sampler / Salutations 1995 (Perishable Press, 2001), including a self-portrait drawing by Wilde, presumably painting an apple. And below that, Roy R. Behrens, Mon Dieu. Collage in open-book form (1993). Hamady Collection.

Roy R. Behrens (1993)