artist, designers, architects in World War II camouflage

Above World War II US Army public relations photograph of a course in ground camouflage at Mitchel Field on Long Island NY. The photograph was issued to news vendors in December 1943. The caption read in part as follows—

At "camouflage college" at Mitchel Field, aviation engineers learn everything that is known about the art of camouflage. There is camouflage for every land and clime and in a global war such as this, the camouflage wardrobe is as extensive as that of any lady of fashion.

•••

Philip Gerard, Secret soldiers: how a troupe of American artists, designers, and sonic wizards won World War II's battles of deception against the Germans. NYC: Plume, 2003, pp. 7-8—

America has a habit of forgetting the lessons of war during peacetime. Though the US Army had fielded a talented camouflage corps in World War I and learned critical lessons from its British and French counterparts about the practical value of deception on the battlefield, by the time the United States declared war on Germany and Japan, it had all but forgotten them. The whole theory of deception had to be reinvented, and a new generation of men trained to put it into effect in a cataclysmic war.

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 / 

FALSE COLORS: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage

CAMOUPEDIA: A Compendium of Research

on Art, Architecture and Camouflage

SHIP SHAPE: A Dazzle Camouflage Sourcebook

Aldis Lamps, Bolo Bananas, and Some Dog's Body

Caption for an illustration (shown above; artist’s signature unclear) from The Aeroplane: The International Air Transport Journal. London, c1919—

THE AIR POLICE—It has been officially stated that we are to have an Air Police Force. Probably it will be International and Local at the same time. As the designing of new uniforms is one of the most important duties of the Air Authorities, a few suggestions are offered—for which no charge will be made. Reading from left to right they are as follows—(A) Provincial Police. Armament as shown. (B) Metropolitan Police. Fitted with Aldis Lamps, Bolo Bananas and Pockets. (C) Our French Bobbies would no doubt prefer “camouflage” as a distinction from the ordinary gendarmes. (D) The Irish Constabulary would, of course, want something different from anyone else. (E) The City Police would, no doubt, go in for something quite “Posh.” (F) And “over there” the Air Force Sheriff would be “Some dog’s body.”

WWII US Army camouflage experiments at Fort Belvoir

For years I have searched vintage newspapers, looking for little-known articles on art and camouflage, with the intention of restoring them to a readable state, and sharing them with others who are interested in the subject.

Above is one from the Boston Sunday Post, Your World Section, March 16, 1941 (larger-sized scans with readable text can be found through online searches of newspaper archives). 

Written by James Miller, the title of this feature is The Army Prepares to Disguise the Nation. The article is an overview of wartime camouflage experiments at Fort Belvoir VA, twenty miles outside of Washington DC. Note the large scale illustration of two soldiers concealed in a background of foliage, and, below that, two men demonstrating camouflage-patterned uniforms.

RELATED VIDEO SERIES

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

Painted Battlefield Helmets during World War One

Above Allied soldier during WWI with a disruptively-painted helmet.

•••

Anon, IN ART CIRCLES, in Long Beach Independent (long Beach CA), March 27, 1949, p. 10—

[A retired oil-field worker turned artist, Carl R. Walline’s] interest in painting dates back to the first World War, when he drummed up a lively business on a returning troop ship painting camouflage on the helmets of soldiers at a dollar a helmet.

With this leftover camouflage paint he did his first landscape.

•••

Anon, SOLDIERS HUNT WAR TROPHIES, Camouflaged Helmet the Favorite But Another German Souvenir Will Do, COMING HOME LOADED DOWN, in Elwood Call Leader (Elwood IN), December 30, 1918, p. 1—

With the American Troops, Dec. 26—Pretty nearly every doughboy at the front has become a boche souvenir hunter and has annexed a quantity of excess baggage that in some cases is appalling.

The first impulse of a German soldier who decided to retreat or to surrender seemed to be to get rid of his steel helmet, beautifully or weirdly camouflaged. In any column of prisoners to be seen on any road behind the American lines not over five in any 100 are still wearing their helmets. All have donned the soft slouch cap that so detracts from their soldierly appearance.

Every Fighter Loaded Down
The helmets were dropped, thrown away in haste, and all but cluttered up the battlefield. Nearly every American soldier who has been fighting at the front either has a German helmet by now or has sent one home. For under a new rule by general headquarters it is now possible to paste a home address on a German helmet, drop the headgear into the mail box and send it to mother, sister or sweetheart. Just how many have gone home, ostensibly as the personal booty of the sender, it would be hard to say.

Many of the helmets are interesting to say the least. Many boche soldiers have in their idle hours painted and camouflaged their headpieces until they have a weirdly odd appearance. The German helmets have vastly more surface space than the American, the British or the French. It has protection for the ears and neck in the shape of a rim or extension, so that quite a little picture can be drawn on it.

Disruptively-patterned German helmet

 
Most Popular Camouflage
The most popular camouflage is a series of two-inch stripes that meet at the top of the helmet and extend like the ribs of a fan outward and downward to the edges of the hat. In other cases the entire surface space is painted into squares of yellow, green and gray, or in all the colors of the rainbow. The composite effect is startling. These are the most coveted of all souvenir helmets, and the doughbory who has not the opportunity of finding one on the battlefield gladly gives a sack of tobacco for one.

Shoulder straps make another interesting and portable souvenir though they are also a distinct military value because they help to identify the units that have been opposed to the Americans. Yet there are enough for this purpose and to spare, and they are eagerly sought by the solider who does not care to be burdened with a heavy helmet in addition to his own.

•••

Anon, ORIZABA BRINGS LEATHERNECKS IN, Giant Troopship Has On Board 11th Regiment of Devil Dogs, in The Daily Press (Newport News VA), August 7, 1919, p. 3—

The transport Orizaba landed at the naval base yesterday with one of the largest groups of soldiers she has ever carried, when she brought home the 11th regiment of Marines. More than 4,000 men were aboard the transport…

Nearly all the Marines had their helmets painted with all the colors of the rainbow. The men said that a camouflage artist aboard was responsible for the tortoise-shell effects given to the tin hats.…

USS Orizaba in dazzle camouflage scheme

New and Improved Personal Camouflage Methods

Bruce Bairnsfather (c1918)

Above A classic cartoon (c1918) of a dazzle-patterned World War I soldier by British cartoonist and humorist Bruce Bairnsfather.

•••

L.W. LOWER IS A DAB AT COLOR SCHEMES in Daily News (Perth, Western Australia), September 23, 1939, p. 21—

Camouflage classes have been started in the Eastern States [of Australia]. We need them here.

The idea of camouflage is to convince observers that you are not where you are, and not even in any place where you're not.

This will apply mostly to buildings and other structures.

But personal camouflage is another matter.

It will be advisable for citizens to carry a variety of paint pots with them.

For ordinary street wear all that is needed is a pot of paint the same color as the pavement.

At the first sign of danger, the head should be plunged into the paint pot, thus deluding the enemy.

Green paint should be poured over the upper portion of the body when one is in a park.

The addition of a dahlia on top of the head will help.

Motors will find it a simple matter to paint the back of a cow on the roof of cars.

A simpler method is to carry an umbrella which looks from the top like a street man-hole.

All you have to do is to sit in the roadway under the umbrella and look like the entrance to a drain.

To make the thing more realistic you should also feel like the entrance to a drain.

In the meantime I am going to persuade the local publican to allow me to use his cellar as an air-raid shelter, starting from today.

He doesn't seem too willing to collaborate, so far.

Camouflage Hoodies | Sinister French Artillery Robes

early WWI French camouflage (c1914)

In earlier blog entries (such as one on camouflaged robes, and a second on French camouflage and criminals), we've posted information about the hooded outfits that were devised by French artists who were serving in artillery teams at the beginning of World War I. As I've described elsewhere—

 …what we call camouflage was first promoted by artists serving in the French Army in the early years of WWI. While there is some confusion about which individual initiated the ideas, the reasons are not in contention. Soldiers assigned to artillery teams were dismayed by the ease with which airborne enemy spotters could find and report the positions of their field artillery. In response, they initiated two countermeasures: the application of disruptive ("broken color") patterns on the surface of their cannons, and the donning by those in artillery teams of sinister-looking hooded robes, called cagoules (they closely resembled the outfit worn by a French crime novel character called Fantomas (c. 1911) or darkened paint-stained versions of Ku Klux Klan ceremonial robes).•

A surprising number of photographs of these hoodie-like camouflage outfits have survived, including a handful of full-color images in the collection of the Bibliothéque Nationale de France, and can be accessed online (posted here are restored, cropped and cleaned-up renditions of those). Other images of these outfits, whether black and white photographs and drawings, or painted illustrations by artists, were also commonly reproduced in contemporaneous magazines, such as on the cover of Scientific American (September 29, 1917). Even a few of the robes have survived.

• From Roy R. Behrens, "Khaki to khaki (dust to dust): the ubiquity of camouflage in human experience" in Ann Elias, Ross Harley and Nicholas Tsoutas, eds., Camouflage Cultures: Beyond the Art of Disappearance. Sydney AU: Sydney University Press, 2015, pp. 1-15.

 

Abbott H. Thayer | Exhibition Catalog

Cover of Thayer exhibition catalog (2013)

I feel very fortunate to have been able to contribute the introduction to the full-color catalog for a current exhibition about the camouflage-related work of American painter Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921). The richly-illustrated catalog, titled Abbott Handerson Thayer: A Beautiful Law of Nature, has just been published by Gold Leaf Studios in Washington DC, and can now be purchased online, either as a printed softbound book or a pdf download. It was edited and designed by Ari Post who is the Project and Exhibits Manager at Gold Leaf Studios.

Inside its pages are nearly fifty reproductions of rarely-seen art works and other artifacts by Thayer, whose research of animal coloration led to his popular designation (in news accounts) as the "father of camouflage." In 1949, his family gave to the Smithsonian Institution about one hundred items, many of which were his experimental studies of both natural and military camouflage. Fortunately, these priceless research artifacts have survived all these years, but the majority of them have never been exhibited publicly nor even reproduced in books. As the examples in this catalog show, this seemingly small exhibition is in truth a potentially major event. And it's something we can all share, because the current exhibition is at the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg VA, a short drive from the nation's capital. The exhibit opened recently, on February 1, and continues through May 26, 2013.

Interior page spread

In addition to my introduction, the catalog also offers an insightful discussion of Thayer as an observer of nature by a prominent British zoologist, Martin Stevens (recently co-editor of a pivotal book, titled Animal Camouflage: Mechanisms and Function), and a thoughtful essay on Thayer's work as an artist and its significance by art historian William Kloss, a well-known authority on European and American art.

Interior page spread

There are several other sections of equal fascination (also written by Ari Post), including one on Thayer's grasp of the "laws of nature," his attempts to design military camouflage (both soldiers' uniforms and disruptive ship camouflage), his insatiable interest in the appearance of animals, and (appropriately, given the role of Gold Leaf Studios in enabling this event) the principles by which exquisitely suitable frames are designed for the paintings of someone of Thayer's achievement.

books & historic prints and photographs

Camouflage Ice Jackets | Stone Island

Ice Jacket Camouflage from Stone Island

In recent weeks, Paul Dezentjé, a writer from the Netherlands, has been sharing information with us about a variety of camouflage based developments in clothing design. Dezentjé writes for an interesting Dutch magazine called Bright. He is especially interested in the work of an Italian graphic designer named Massimo Osti (1944-2005), who thirty years ago initiated a line of functional garments he called Stone Island, a brand that is still in existence. Dezentjé has published a fascinating article on Osti's innovations, an English translation of which is available here online. 

Of particular interest are Osti’s experiments with adaptive clothing. One example is his use of a fabric (invented in Japan) to produce garments (called Camouflage Ice Jackets) that automatically change color in response to changes in temperature, in concert with seasonal changes. Dezentjé himself has a waistcoat “that changes color in the summer sun.”

In 2008, the Stone Island brand came out with a series of jackets in which each garment was one-of-a-kind. Each was a unique hand-painted camouflage scheme, with a richness of color and gesture that reminds us of the surfaces of abstract expressionist paintings.

In the meantime, two new books are being released: One if a 415-page monograph titled Ideas from Massimo Osti; while the other is a 644-page book on the history of the first three decades of Stone Island, titled Stone Island Archivio 982-012.

Stone Island hand-painted camouflage jacket

Camouflage for the Tin Man

WWII US Army camouflage suit (c1942)

Shown above is an eccentric experiment in disruptive coloration for a World War II US Army sniper that appeared in the popular press (c1942). The costume is admittedly confusing, but it must have been a challenge to wear. Most likely, it was a stunt for journalists, a "photo opportunity" for the purpose of publicizing the war effort.

San Quentin Prison Camouflage

Inmates in striped prison suits (not at San Quentin)

From Dean Jennings, "Inside San Quentin Prison: Factory for Forgotten Men" in The Rotarian (August 1948), p. 16—

"When [US] Army officers were searching for camouflage artists [during World War II], they came to San Quentin [State Prison in California] on a routine visit. Strolling around the prison hospital, the administration headquarters, and other buildings on the huge reservation, they noticed hundreds of beautiful murals on the walls. There were paintings of all the great railroad trains in history; there were life-size works illustrating Bible stories. There were ships, planes, landscapes, buildings—covering every available inch of bare wall space.

'That's wonderful stuff!' one of the officers exclaimed. 'How big is your staff of artists?'

[Warden Clifton] Duffy grinned. 'I haven't any staff. Every one of those murals was done by one man. He wanted to give this place some beauty, even though he knew he could never take his work off the walls.'

The officer nodded thoughtfully. 'We need men with that kind of guts,' he said. 'We'll take him.'

So Roy Colyar, a great artist behind walls, went over to an Army post on special parole, using his brush for camouflage work—so that other men might live. Colyar is still in the service, and his fine record has earned him a full parole effective this year."

Camouflage Isn't Camouflage

From Carol Burke, Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-and-Tight: Gender, Folklore and Changing Military Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004, p. 88—

Camouflage no longer camouflages. The point is not to blend into the landscape but to stand out as a guerrilla-in-waiting. For white supremacists, store-bought BDUs [battle dress uniforms] lend a spurious authenticity to ragtag renegade activities and permit them to see themselves as a vigilant militia organized in defense of fundamental American values.