Dustin Keller | Camouflaged household appliances

Dustin Keller / Lozenge camouflage toaster

Ala serendipity, we've run across an online site called Keller's Blog on which a Canadian high school teacher (of art and guitar) named Dustin Keller has posted a camouflaged-themed problem for his students at the John Oliver Secondary School in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Dustin Keller / Three-tone camouflage toaster

A variety of problems are posted there, but the one that we were drawn to (of course) is Skins & Camouflage. As specified on that page, the students were asked to design a prototype of a quasi-camouflaged "small household applicance," such as (for example) a toaster.

Dustin Keller / Dazzle camouflage toaster

The three examples posted here were designed by Mr. Keller. It's a great idea—elegant, fun, and nifty for sure. Surely, his students enjoyed it.

Tom Mix stands tall | fearless, he is every inch a man

Cowboy film star Tom Mix \ he was every inch a man!

Surely, no one appreciates reader responses more than we do. But admittedly we were surprised by the number of followers who objected to our most recent post, in which we appeared to make light of the diminished stature of American artist Charles Lasar, who was fondly known as "Shorty Lasar."  To make amends, we are now posting a WWI-era Hollywood film advertisement for the famous cowboy actor Tom Mix (1880-1940). He stands heroically on his horse, keeping a look-out for outlaws. The caption reads:

Every Inch a Man! There is no camouflage about him!—no doubles to do his difficult stunts!—no actor on the face of the earth who can do what he does! TOM MIX: the man who never fakes…he is the reincarnation of fearlessness —a dare-devil who flirts with death.

In his personal life, he may have flirted otherwise too, since he was married five times. His thirst for adventure extended to cars. He died in 1940, at age sixty, when his speeding 1937 Cord 812 Phaeton swerved to avoid a highway flood detour and overturned in a desert wash near Florence AZ. The crash site is now known as the "Tom Mix Wash."

Reproduced below is another full-page ad with the same theme: Tom Mix Doesn't Camouflage, from the September-October 1918 issue of Motion Picture News.

Let it be known that we have equally high regard for Charles Lasar, however diminutive. In our opinion, he too was every inch a man.

Tom Mix doesn't camouflage

The History of Camouflage | YouTube Video

The Fine Print | History of Camouflage | Episode One

Above Forty-five years ago, when I first published articles on art and camouflage, no one was even remotely interested. Now it seems as if everyone is researching camouflage, even hip hop. It's been a long and often enlightening search.

Here's the lastest: A seven-minute online video, produced by Mountain Dew's Green Label, the first of three episodes, titled The Fine Print: The History of Camouflage. Enjoy.

Give 'Em Hell | Billy Sunday Camouflaged

Billy Sunday (Wikipedia)

William Ashley Sunday (1862-1935), better known as Billy Sunday, was an Iowa-born fire and brimstone preacher, who played professional baseball in the National League for eight years. He left that profession in 1880 to become a popular, well-known evangelist, whose eccentric preaching style was outlandishly athletic (see photos above and below). He was in part the model for the preacher in Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis, and in Lewis' novel Babbitt, he was the inspiration for the boxer turned evangelist named Mike Monday, described by Lewis as "the distinguished evangelist, the best-known Protestant pontiff in America...As a prize-fighter he gained nothing but his crooked nose, his celebrated vocabulary, and his stage-presence. The service of the Lord had been more profitable."

Of Billy Sunday, the poet Carl Sandburg wrote: "You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist and calling us all damned fools so fierce the froth slobbers over your lips...always blabbing we’re all going to hell straight off and you know all about it...Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to. Smash a whole wagon load of furniture at every performance. Turn sixty somersaults and stand on your nutty head. If it wasn’t for the way you scare the women and kids I’d feel sorry for you and pass the hat. I like to watch a good four-flusher work, but not when he starts people puking and calling for the doctors." 

Sunday also wrote a syndicated newspaper column, a newsprint homily of sorts, in one issue of which he warned about the evils of camouflage. It makes sense. What better practitioner of duplicitous sales and deception?

Billy Sunday, THE ART OF CAMOUFLAGE, in The Delphi Journal (Delphi IN), December 9, 1920—

There's a Lot of Chatter, these days, about Camouflage! When your Uncle Bill first Harkened to the Word, he thought it was a New French Dish, probably Cooked in a Casserole, and, being the Kind of Geezer who will Try Anything Once in the Line of Eats, he came Pretty near Ordering it from the Dinge in the Diner.

But Camouflage is not that Sort of Thing, it Seems.

It is the Military Art of Kidding the Enemy—of making things Look like What they Ain't, so to speak!

The French Rig Up an old Tree to Pass for a Cannon, and let Fritz waste his Ammunition on This, while a Little Way down the Line, the Real Seventy-five is Blazing Away from what Appears to be an Innocent Domicile.

They can even Paint a Dummy Bridge on Canvas and Stretch it Across the River, and Fake a Rippling Stream to cover the Real Bridge, and Bunk the Flyers who Lamp it from Above.

As a Military Art, Camouflage is a great  thing!

But there is altogether Too Much Camouflaging being done in Ordinary Life. The Dame that Sails down the Boulevard in a Get-up which is the Last Holler in Vogue—and at the Same Time is Skinning Down on the Old Man's Bats, at Home—is practicing Camouflage.

And the Young Buck who Dolls Up like a Million Dollars and has Little More than the Return Fare in his Jeans, he's Trying the Art, too.

But Worst of Them All is the Old Deacon who Sits in the First Pew on Sunday and Pipes Up Strong in the Hymns and on the Amen Stuff, and then spends the Rest of the Week in the Gentle Game of Nicking the Poor Widow for Twelve Per Cent, on the Loan.

There are Enough Experts on Camouflage of This Sort in the USA to equip a whole Army Corps on the Western Front.

But they don't Get Away with it for Very Long. The World gets their Numbers, and the Big Guns of Honesty and Common Sense soon Shoot them to Pieces.

Leave Camouflage to the Military Men, where it Belongs and Does Some Good!

If you're only an Old Log, don’t Pretend you're a Rapid-Fire Field Gun!

Develop yourself, and Maybe you'll Get to Be One. Don't put yourself Higher up the Tree than you Belong, for there's Bound to Be a Fall—and usually with an Awful Bump.

Trojan Horse Camouflage | Shakespeare Too

Sheboygan Press, January 1, 1918, artist unknown

Above A cartoon illustration on the historic antecedents of World War I camouflage as published in the Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan WI), January 7, 1918, p. 8. The artist's signature, at bottom right, is unreadable. Image restored and adjusted.

•••

Theodor Reik—

Where would a clever man hide a particular leaf? In the forest.

•••

Colin Watson—

A needle is much simpler to find in a haystack than in a bin of other needles.

Camouflage Skirts: A Sartorial Disaster

Rebecca Palmer (1884), Crazy Quilt

Above An example of a crazy quilt, made with silk and velvet by Rebecca Palmer (1884). Collection of the Brooklyn Museum. Image from Wikipedia Commons.

When Cubist artworks were first exhibited in the US at the Armory Show in New York (1913), followed by the wartime adoption of dazzle painting for ship camouflage (1917), the public compared them to the crazy quilts at county fairs.

•••

Anon, in “Perth Prattle,” Sunday Times (Perth, Western AU), Sunday, June 2, 1918, p. 15—

The “camouflage” skirt is here, writes “Lady Kitty” in the Adelaide Observer. The cretonne skirt is a sartorial disaster. There is not an article in the whole of ones wardrobe that could possibly “go” with the skirt. It made its first appearance in Sydney, where six and eight guineas were asked—and given—for these camouflage skirts. They are of silk, but such silk! It is most suitably called “crazy.” This demented silk starts at being a wonderful pattern in colors which absolutely pale the gorgeousness of all Eastern color magnificence, when suddenly it is camouflaged with great patches of dullish background. Most weird. Camouflage, you know, is to make things appear other than what they really are—to disguise them, in fact, so that the crazy silk sets out to be a very striking fabric which it is suddenly camouflaged by broad strips of plain color which quite disguise its original identity, but really make it more striking still. Camouflage parties, at which people wear camouflaged fancy dress, have become quite a rage for funding-raising purposes; and if guests are ingenious enough the result is screamingly funny. 

•••

Anon, in The Week, The World’s News (Sydney NSW), Saturday, April 13, 1918, p. 14—

Dame Fashion is a fool, and that is putting it mildly. She decrees that women must adopt camouflage for their dress. What need is there for any such thing? Hasn’t woman camouflaged ever since Eve took Adam in over the apple? Of course she has, and will continue to do it just whenever it suits her ideas. If she wants to win a post that wheedling won’t accomplish, she camouflages her face with tears, and lo, she arrives at the desired end. And what she can do with rouge and powder passes all understanding. It is camouflage carried to a fine art. What man could tell that the short-frocked, finely-complexioned, sixteen-year-old hatted person at a distance was over forty and the mother of six? This is camouflage, and with a vengeance, and yet Fashion wants to add to it by use of dresses. If it means that plain cotton stuff at 1s 2d the yard, six yards for 6s 6d, can be so faked by the skillful dressmaker as to appear like a silk confection at a guinea a yard, by all means camouflage. But if it means turning a probable ten-guinea costume into a twenty-pounder, then camouflage is a miserable failure. Everything depends upon what that fickle jade, Fashion, is after. Usually she strives to deplete the purse of the hard-working husband or father, but if in this case, as in the case of ships, the object is to save—then camouflage for ever.

Frederick Waugh, Camouflage and Dickie Dare

Coulton Waugh, Dickie Dare (1943)

Above (detail) Coulton Waugh, portion of the comic strip Dickie Dare (showing "dazzle camouflage" on the right), from the Harrisburg Telegraph (Harrisburg PA), December 27, 1943.

•••

Ray Goulding of the Bob & Ray radio comedy team was a high school classmate of beatnik novelist Jack Kerouac. Film actress Anne Baxter was the granddaughter of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who was also related by marriage to New York urban planner Robert Moses. Western gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok (James Butler Hickok) was related to Civil War general and politician Benjamin F. Butler, as well as to Adelbert Ames II (inventor of the Ames Distorted Room) and to writer George Plimpton. Humorist S.J. Perelman was the brother-in-law of novelist Nathaniel West. And finally (this is the punchline) American artist and ship camoufleur Frederick Judd Waugh (whom we have blogged about before) was the father of cartoonist (Frederick) Coulton Waugh (1896-1973), best-known for the comic strips Dickie Dare and Hank.

The elder Waugh died in 1940. In browsing through various panels of the younger Waugh's Dickie Dare, we've found several references to camouflage, including indirect homages to his father's designs for WWI-era "dazzle camouflage" (see example above).

The F. Coulton Waugh Papers are housed at Syracuse University, while other Waugh Family Papers are in the collection of the Archives of American Art. Among the folders in the latter is one described as "World War I Material, circa 1914. Likely Coulton Waugh's, possibly Frederick Judd Waugh's." Since it was the father (not the son) who served in the war, our suspicion is that this may be his material. It may even pertain to ship camouflage.

See also: Roy R. Behrens, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016). 

WW1 Camouflaged Misogyny—After a Fashion

Civilian examples of camouflage (1917)

Above Camouflage and fashion cartoon (digitally restored) from The Ogden Standard (Ogden UT), December 3, 1917, p. 11.

•••

Anon, CONEY ISLAND WAR THRILLS in The World's News (Sydney AU), August 23, 1919, p. 19—

Americans are experiencing many thrills of near participation in the war this summer. A great number of novel reproductions of action along the battle fronts, in the air, and at sea, are to be seen at Coney Island (New York) and similar holiday resorts.

…A popular device…is called "Treat 'em rough," which was the motto of the American Tank Corps during the war. Patrons are strapped in seats and sent through an extraordinary series of up and down and sidewise motions that only the strongest constitutions can successfully stand. This new "stunt" is advertised as guaranteed to reduce fat and put anybody in trim for an army career.

Coney Island is attempting daring water novelties this summer in the form of bathing suits for feminine wear, consisting of single-piece garments with zigzag stripes. They are called "camouflage suits"—because it is so difficult to see them.

•••

Anon, from BRITISH AND FOREIGN in Alburry Banner and Wodonga Express (New South Wales AU), August 8, 1919, p. 35—

Girls so cleverly camouflaged that it was difficult for the audience to tell whether they were looking at the faces or the backs of the girls, greatly amused the Queen [of England] who attended an exhibition of drill given them at the Savoy Hotel, London, on a recent occasion.

•••

From the Melbourne Punch (Victoria AU), May 16, 1918, p. 32—

A lately returned traveler from Sydney tells us we are awfully dull down here—that life up there is so Continental it is dine out at some hotel or restaurant (of which there are many to choose from) every evening, wearing a whitewash complexion, watermelon lips, a camouflage skirt, and the merest whisper of a dinner blouse; then on to a theatre; thence to a cocktail supper.

•••

Anon, from THE WEEK in The World's News (Sydney AU), April 13, 1918, p. 14—

Dame Fashion is a fool, and that is putting it mildly. She decrees that women must adopt camouflage for their dress. What need is there for any such thing? Hasn't woman camouflaged ever since Eve took Adam in over the apple? Of course she has, and will continue to do it just whenever it suits her ideas. If she wants to win a post that wheedling won't accomplish, she camouflages her face with tears, and lo, she arrives at the desired end. And what she can do with rouge and powder passes all understanding. It is camouflage carried to a fine art. What man could tell that the short-frocked, finely-complexioned, sixteen-year-old hatted person at a distance was over forty and the mother of six? That is camouflage, and with a vengeance, and yet Fashion wants to add to it by use on dresses. If it means that plain cotton stuff at 1s 2d the yard, six yards for 6s 6d, can be so faked by the skillful dressmaker as to appear like a silk confection at a guinea a yard, by all means camouflage. But if it means turning a probable ten-guinea costume into a twenty-pounder, then camouflage is a miserable failure. Everything depends upon what that fickle jade, Fashion, is after. Usually she strives to deplete the purse of the hardworking husband or father, but if in this case, as in the case of ships, the object is to save—then camouflage for ever.

Chintzy Camouflage Fashions

Blending camouflage by Starr Wood (1921)

Above A camouflage-fashion related cartoon by British artist Starr Wood, as published in Punch magazine, August 3, 1921, p. 81. The caption reads Unfortunate Situation for a Lady Who Paid a Local Call in a Chintz Costume.

•••

Anon, DAZZLE FASHIONS, in the South Wales Weekly Post (Wales), March 29, 1919, p. 1—

"The very latest spring fashion will be a dazzle suit," said a West End tailor. "The colors instead of being woven in stripes or checks will blend in a kind of futurist combination, artistic but not outrageous.

Popular taste is running to color in clothes. Neckties and socks will be much more gorgeous, and in masculine modes generally there is a demand for the picturesque, and a revolt against severe tones and lines."

•••

Eleanor, FASHION NOTES: The Camouflage Skirt, in the Sunday Times (Sydney AU), April 28, 1918, p. 18—

The name camouflage is generally applied to those skirts of crazy silks, cretonne and the heavily patterned silk and woolen mixture, made with myriads of small pleats, or large ones which extend over the hips hiding the true outline of the patterned material except where the skirt flared some inches above the hem. When carried out in striped or checked material, the pleats are sometimes arranged to obscure one of the colors, giving the top of the skirt a plain effect, the stripes only being visible where the fare of the hem commences.

Modified editions of camouflage skirts carried out in the new crazy silks are really graceful. Some of them are gathered at the waist instead of pleated, others introduce plain panels at the front and back with pleats at the sides. Checked material is fashionable, and the larger designs make up well in camouflage style. These skirts are serviceable and smart for morning wear, and combine admirably with plain shirt blouses.

•••

Coatless Brigade, in SHIRT REFORM: Badly Needed, in the Sunday Mail (Brisbane, Queensland AU), January 14, 1934, p. 6—

…something will have to be done about those [outlandish men's] shirts. Some of them are positively indecent and revolting—by indecent is meant those that offend the eye, not the morals. None, except a crazy camouflage expert, can see beauty, grace, purity, or even coolness in a portly figure draped in little more than the mistaken glory of a pale, green shirt with purple trimmings. Such a sight has a shocking reaction on the optical nerves, causes a rush of blood to the head, and provokes a fever of prickly heat on the body of anyone who can lay the slightest claim to have aesthetic tastes.

•••

 Anon, Carmarthen Weekly Reporter (Wales), March 22, 1918, p. 3—

[A certain military officer] in the course of his address on Friday night said that he had seen a lady make a "meat pie" without any meat in it. The explanation was that it tasted like a meat pie. It is evident that the art of camouflage is making its way from the firing line to the kitchen.

additional sources

Camouflage Paintings | Pia Dehne

© Pia Dehne 2011

In the late 1960s, when we first began to write about art and camouflage, there wasn't much interest. But in recent years, the subject's popularity has grown phenomenally, and now it seems a commonplace for artists or academic scholars to be engaged, in one way or another, in camouflage-related research. Some of the results are fascinating, while, not surprisingly, a lot of what is being done is neither interesting nor innovative.

Among those whose art pertains to camouflage, I find of particular interest a series of paintings (oil on canvas) by German-born American artist Pia Dehne. One of those works (titled Red Leaf Hunter, 2011) is above, with a second below (F-16 Jet, 2011). She has an artist's website that includes a subsection on Camo Vision, which houses the series of paintings that I find of particular value. Her gallery representation is with Salomon Contemporary in NYC and with AJLART in Berlin.

© Pia Dehn 2011

books on art and camouflage

French Camouflage and Criminals

WWI French camoufleurs wearing hooded cagoule outfits

In an earlier post, we reproduced various images of French camoufleurs dressed in paint-streaked hooded outfits, the term for which was cagoule. These were adopted early in World War I by artists in the French infantry, to prevent themselves from being seen by aerial observers as they manned field artillery. Above is the cover of a French magazine (dated June 5, 1915) in which soldiers are wearing uniforms that look eerily like a mottled variation on the sinister ceremonial hoods of the American Ku Klux Klan. At the time, the French public was disturbed by this radical change of attire. This was described thirty years ago by art historian Elizabeth Louise Kahn in The Neglected Majority: "Les Camoufleurs," Art History, and World War I (University Press of America, 1984)—

Hidden beneath camouflaged cagoules…was a ghoulish image of the modern soldier, whose finely fitted and brilliant red and blue clothing was replaced by an amorphous costume of drab greens and browns that turned the individual into a frightening form.

Later on the same page, she mentions that one of the reasons for the initial disdain for camouflage was that "the very term camouflage held a devious and unseedy [sic] meaning for French readers of popular literature…" Prior to the founding of the first camouflage unit, it "was a word used to describe evil criminals who lurked about city streets and hid themselves from the police" (p. 148).

We were reminded of this when recently we ran across various images from French popular literature and film, before and during WWI, of a fictitious criminal named Fantomas. Created in 1911 by French writers Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre, the character was central to more than forty crime novels. The popularity of the books was amplified by various adaptations for film, television and comic books.

French crime character Fantomas

I mention this because in some of the images (such as those posted here), this crime character has an uncanny resemblance to a WWI hooded camoufleur. If Fantomas was on the minds of the French public at the outset of the war, no wonder they viewed with suspicion the cagoules (the "hoodies") of the camoufleurs.

books & historic prints and photographs