Camouflage Artist | Henry Reuterdahl

Portraits of Henry Reuterdahl

Above Three portraits of Swedish-born American artist Henry Reuterdahl. The pen-and-ink drawing is from a newspaper advertisement (Milwaukee Journal, February 17, 1913) for Tuxedo tobacco. Described in the ad as a "famous naval artist and expert on naval construction," Reuterdahl is quoted as saying: You've got to smoke while painting out of doors in winter—it helps you keep warm. And a pipeful of pure, mild Tuxedo tobacco makes one forget the cold, and the paint flows more freely.

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We've known about Henry Reuterdahl (1871-1925) for a number of years, in part because he tried his hand at camouflaging a submarine chaser, the USS DeGrasse. We know this from a passage in Lida Rose McCabe, "Camouflage: War's Handmaid" (Art World, January 1918, pp. 313-318), in which she writes—

Contrary to [William Andrew] Mackay's or [Abbott H.] Thayer's method [for ship camouflage] is that of Henry Reuterdahl, the famous marine painter…

"There is no science that I know of in my ship camouflaging," said Reuterdahl who camouflaged the submarine chaser DeGrasse, "I am guided wholly by feeling acquired through twenty-five years more or less buffeting the sea."

In the meantime, we've now located a photograph of the USS DeGrasse, as painted in Reuterdahl's camouflage scheme. It's available online at the website of the Naval History and Heritage Command (NH 94479-A), and is also reproduced below. The camouflage is evident, but faintly so (the lack of color doesn't help). Splotchy and indefinite, it reminds me of the paintings of J.M.W. Turner.
 

Camouflaged USS DeGrasse (1918)

There is another reference to Reuterdahl's interest in camouflage in "Women Camoufleurs Disguise the Recruit" (an event we blogged about earlier) (New York Tribune, July 12, 1918, p. 6)—

[As the women camoufleurs were painting a multi-colored dazzle scheme on the ship-shaped NYC recruiting station] Henry Reuterdahl, the artist, was present with suggestions.

In retrospect, Reuterdahl's approach to camouflage is consistent with the style he used (with great success) in depicting heroic naval events as early as the Spanish-American War. He became, as one source put it, "a household word in the American Navy." The spontaneity of his style, combined with accuracy and amazing detail, is evident in his illustration (shown below) of the Atlantic Fleet in Rio (1908).

Henry Reuterdahl, Atlantic Fleet In Rio (1908)

Our interest in Reuterdahl and camouflage was rekindled about a week ago when Kansas City graphic designer Joe Boeckholt (we blogged recently about the current exhibit, initiated by the Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio State Historic Site, that he designed about Benton's involvement with camouflage) shared his recent discovery that one of the murals in the Missouri State Capitol (Jefferson City) depicts a number of camouflaged ships. And the mural was painted by (guess who) Henry Reuterdahl. So far we haven't been able to find a good full-color image of that mural, but below is a reasonably clear grayscale version of it. 

Reuterdahl mural in Missouri State Capitol

Titled The Navy Guarded the Road to France, the mural celebrates the achievements of US Navy captain J.K. Taussig, who, like the commanders of the other (dazzle-painted) ships included in the mural, was Missouri-born (or raised). Taussig is shown attacking a submarine aboard his ship, the destroyer USS Wadsworth. His heroism was much publicized in magazines and newspapers, as is shown below in the photograph of the USS Wadsworth in camouflage, with an inset photo of Taussig himself.
 

Camouflaged USS Wadsworth and Captain J.K. Taussig

Henry Reuterdahl's accomplishments, as a painter as well as a writer (Including a major controversy because of his outspoken comments about the Navy's lack of preparedness), could be told in great detail. But for blogging purposes, it might be wiser to conclude with two other interesting facts about him.

First, during WW1, he was an active contributor to wartime publicity and recruiting, for the purpose of which he created posters for Liberty Bond and Victory Liberty Loan fundraising drives. In one project, he collaborated with illustrator N.C. Wyeth on a huge, 90-foot long mural. In another, a video clip of which is online on YouTube (see screen grab below), he is shown installing a mural that includes a mechanically animated U-boat.

Reuterdahl completing wartime mural

Both Henry Reuterdahl and his wife (née Pauline Stephenson, Chicago) are buried in Arlington National Cemetery. What is puzzling is a news report titled FAMOUS NAVY PAINTER DIES IN AN ASYLUM: Lieut. Com. Henry Reuterdahl Suffered Nervous Breakdown in September in The Norwalk Hour (Norwalk CT), December 25, 1925. It states that, following a nervous breakdown, Reuterdahl was committed to State Elizabeth's Hospital for the Insane, where he died on December 21. His wife died six weeks later, on February 12. 

Reuterdahl Camouflage Mural in Missouri Capitol

Mural in Missouri State Capitol by Henry Reuterdahl (1921)

Swedish-born American artist Henry Reuterdahl (1871-1925) was a prominent albeit mysterious participant in World War I ship camouflage. We’ve talked about him in earlier blogposts, including a brief discussion about The Navy Guarded the Road to France, his mural on display in the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City. 

There is an infomative overview of this and the other artworks in this building in a book by Bob Priddy, titled The Art of the Missouri Capitol: History in Canvas, Bronze, and Stone, including a vivid photograph of Reuterdahl’s mural (shown above). Thanks to Steve Sitton, administrator at the Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio State Historic Site, for calling our attention to this.

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NAVAL PAINTING IN MISSOURI CAPITOL. Reuterdahl’s Portrayal of Missourians’ Encounter With U-Boat Installed in State House. St. Louis Post-Dispatch. March 21, 1921, p. 17—

JEFFERSON CITY—The first mural painting of the navy to be placed in a State Capitol in the United States is being installed on the south side of the east wing of the State Capitol this week by Lieutenant-Commander Henry Reuterdahl USNRF, as part of the decoration of the Capitol.

This painting, on which Reuterdahl has spent more than four months, portrays the work of Missourians in the navy during the recent war in handling troop convoys.

The center foreground is the deck of the destroyer Wainwright, commanded during the war by Capt. J.K. Taussig of St. Louis. The destroyer is in action against a submarine, her gun crews being busy, while other sailors prepare to launch “Ash Can” depth bombs on the U-boat. Capt. Taussig, glasses focussed on the enemy craft, is shown prominently near one of the guns, watching the effect of a shot from which the smoke and flash are about the gun muzzle. A photograph of this painting was published in the Post-Dispatch rotogravure section January 9.

Higher up on the picture are the Wadsworth, commanded by Capt. Poteet; the Orizaba, Capt. R.D. White; the Finland, Commander Graham, all of Missouri, and the New Orleans, Cleveland, Kansas and Susquehanna, all commanded by Missourians.

Wartime Camouflage Shows

These ships, steaming in convoy formation, are shown in their wartime camouflage, just as they actually appeared, the lines of the vessels, the camouflage designs and other details having been copied by Reuterdahl, from the war models of the navy and loaned for the preparation of this painting.

The picture is in the brilliant coloring which marks all of the work of Reuterdahl, regarded as one of the leading marine artists.

…Reuterdahl, who is to receive $2500 for his picture, came here in his naval uniform, doffing the gold braid cap and jacket and donning a paint-stained artist’s tunic while giving the final touches he desired to add after the painting had gone on the wall. He expects to finish his work and depart for New York tomorrow.

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Reproduced below is yet another Reuterdahl painting of camouflaged ships (c1919), in which the USS Allen is shown escorting two troopships, the SS France and the USS Mount Vernon, as they cross the Atlantic Ocean. Other ships are also shown.

Painting by Henry Reuterdahl (c1919)

Camouflage Artist | Henry Reuterdahl (Again)

Henry Reuterdahl poster (1917). Public domain.

In an earlier post, we talked about Swedish-born American artist Henry Reuterdahl (1871-1925), and the mural that he painted for the Missouri State Capitol Building, titled The Navy Guarded the Way to France (1921. It included several camouflaged ships. 

But we failed to note that earlier, in 1917, he designed a wartime poster, with the caption He Guards the Road to France. Warm His Heart. As reproduced above, it too includes two dazzle-painted ships in the background.

Additional sources

Newly Discovered Photo | Women Paint USS Recruit

Having blog posted, exhibited and written about the dazzle-painting of the USS Recruit by a crew from the Women's Camouflage Corps in Union Square in New York (1918), we were recently delighted to find yet another news photograph of that process taking place. It's reproduced above, in a cropped, carefully restored version.

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Update on January 9, 2019: Attached to the back of this photograph, dated 7/12/18, is the following title and caption from Underwood and Underwood—
WOMEN CAMOUFLAGE LAND BATTLESHIP "RECRUIT" IN UNION SQUARE Dressed in their neat-fitting khaki uniforms, these women camoufleurs of the Women's National Service League are disguising the land battleship Recruit in Union Square, New York. They trained in Van Cortlandt Park on smaller objects, like rock and stumps, but this was the first big stunt they tackled. Henry Reuterdahl, the famous marine artist, was present with suggestions. The next best thing that the government could do would be to conscript all our futurist designers, poster-impressionists [sic], and artists of the neo-neo school and send them to work camouflaging vessels.

Women's Dazzle-Painting Team at NYPL

Above and below are public domain news photographs (1918), showing members of the Women's Reserve Camouflage Corps applying dazzle camouflage to a tank that has been placed in front of the New York Public Library. In the first photograph, the high contrast disruptive shapes are beginning to be evident. In the photo directly below that (apparently taken earlier), one of the tricks of the trade is revealed: they are marking in the boundaries of the colors with white chalk, a method that was commonly used by the teams who painted camouflaged ships.

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Anon, ANOTHER KIND OF CAMOUFLAGE, in Popular Science, November 1918, p. 18—

In war work, as in nature, there are two kinds of camouflage coloration: one is designed to make the camouflaged object harder to distinguish from its surroundings, the other to make it even more conspicuous than it would otherwise be. The latter, however, in war work is restricted to objects used for recruiting purposes. The ocean-going freighters at anchor in the North River, off Manhattan Island, or in any other large harbor, are examples of the first kind. The [object in the three photographs shown here] is an example of the second, undergoing its camouflage painting at the hands of members of the Camouflage Corps of the National League for Women’s Service.

The tank stands in front of the New York Public Library. The young women at work in overalls are making its surface a crazy-quilt of the most violent and incongruous colors imaginable—colors that command the attention of every passer-by. The object is to aid recruiting for the tank service.

The effigy topping the tank’s turret, which seems to be a cross between a puma and a Teddy bear, was put there to make it harder—to overlook the tank.

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ANON, Women War Workers of the World, in The Touchstone and American Art Student Magazine (New York) Vol 3 (1918), pp. 513-514—

The National League for Women’s Service has recently inaugurated a Woman’s Reserve Camouflage Corps. Although the course is unofficial, it is the aim of the corps to be of service to the Government at home and abroad. This division of women’s service is yet too young to have accomplished notable results, although they have helped, under Henry Reuterdahl’s supervision, in painting the land battleship Recruit in Union Square, camouflaged the tank in front of the Public Library, New York City, painted trench tables so that they look like the land and shrubs all around them, and painted snipers’ suits for men to wear when creeping among the rocks and bushes.

Camouflage Artifacts at Spencer Museum of Art

Above Photograph of the interior of a World War I British submarine under construction. The intense exterior lighting is casting shadows on the workers inside, and providing an apt demonstration of the disruption of shapes using shadows. This photograph was published in France in Le Miroir magazine on February 10, 1918, with the following caption—

The British fleet, which was by far the most powerful in the world during peacetime, has increased its superiority since the beginning of the war thanks to the strengthening of its ordnance. It is not possible, of course, to offer precise information on this subject. The fact that the German fleet remains in the port indicates that our enemies are not fooled by the results of naval combat. Our allies have launched many submarines. Here is one of them under construction.

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On March 2, 2019, an exhibition opened at the Spencer Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Kansas in Lawrence. It continues through June 9, but unfortunately I found out about it only recently and won't be able to see it. Titled Camouflage and Other Hidden Treasures, it includes a selection of artifacts from the Eric Gustav Carlson WWI Collection, which includes nearly 4,000 items from the Great War. The current exhibition includes only about 1/60th of the full collection.

Over the years, Kansas and Missouri have increasingly become prime locations for research pertaining to art, architecture and design in connection with camouflage. In Kansas City MO (as we mentioned in an earlier blog), there is the National WWI Museum (formerly the Liberty Memorial), which features what remains of a huge WWI diorama, called the Pantheon de la Guerre. Completed by French artists in 1918, it originally included about five thousand full-length figures, including identifiable images of some of the French army's camoufleurs.

Also of significance is the Missouri State Capitol Building in Jefferson City MO. It was designed by New York architects  Evarts Tracy and Egerton Swartwout in 1917. When the US entered WWI that year, Tracy was among the first officers in the American Camouflage Corps. Prior to that, one of the co-founders of a civilian forerunner to that unit was Iowa-born sculptor Sherry Edmundson Fry, who was commissioned to create the figure of Ceres that stands on top of the building's dome. Inside the building, in the House Lounge, are the famous Missouri history murals by Thomas Hart Benton, who was a US Navy camoufleur during WWI. Also inside is a mural (with two camouflaged ships in the background) titled The Navy Guarded the Road to France. It was painted in 1921 by US naval camoufleur Henry Reuterdahl, whom we've often blogged about.

There's yet another option: The Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University in Wichita KS owns what may be the largest collection of paintings and other artworks by Frederick Judd Waugh, who was a prominent American ship camoufleur during WWI.