C A M O U P E D I A

Monday, September 22, 2025

highest-paid camouflage expert in England in WWII

Eric Sloane, factory camouflage diagram

PLENTY OF DIZZY PAINTING WHEN CAMOUFLAGERS WORK in Saskatoon Star-Phoenix (Canada), December 23, 1940—

…All through the United Kingdom factories engaged in war work are gradually disappearing from view. More and more they are being heavily camouflaged so they may not be recognized by a person standing on the ground 500 yards away. Landmarks by which they might be readily identified have been given new faces.

In some places entire false avenues have been constructed to change the contours of manufacturing centers. The big foundry, say, with its rambling workshops marking the outskirts of the town, now may be nestled amid rows of framework houses. Or its walls may be hidden from view by weird painted patterns, many of them designed by Lonsdale Hands, who has become Britain’s highest-paid camouflage expert.…

It was only after the war started that Hands became interested in camouflage work. Prior to that he had spent much of his time designing newspaper advertisements for various employers in Fleet Street. One day he got married during his lunch hour, quit his job when refused an increase in pay and suddenly found himself preparing camouflage for one of the largest munition factories in the country.

Since then, his tasks have been increasing, especially since a special committee found many factories were not properly camouflaged and that full use of camouflage was not being taken advantage of by some big plants. Hands and his “Design Unit” have been called on to provide remedies.

•••

Richard Lonsdale-Hands (also cited as Frederick Richard de Prilleux Lonsdale-Hands) (1913-1969) is usually described as an industrial and package designer, advertising executive, and artist. He was the founder in 1937 of Richard Lonsdale-Hands Associates, which in time became one of the largest industrial and marketing firms in Europe. In a review of his paintings in 2011 in the New York Times, he was described as “an impassioned amateur painter” whose work was dismissed as a “shoo-in” for “bad painting.” The 12-page catalog for that exhibition is The Paintings of Richard Lonsdale-Hands (NY: Hirschi and Adler, 2011).

Sunday, September 21, 2025

Gerald Handerson Thayer / an enigmatic life unsolved

Gerald Handerson Thayer

The American painter and ornithologist Gerald Handerson Thayer (see portrait photograph above) remains a mystery.

Over the years, I've written quite a lot about his collaborative work with his father, Abbott Handerson Thayer, who is sometimes also known as "the father of camouflage." The father blinds us to the son. Below are portions from a news article, reporting on a public talk that Gerald presented in Rochester NY two years before his father died. He is a great unknown. At some point he needs to be written about.

•••

CAMOUFLAGE AND PROTECTIVE COLORATION: Man Who Shares with Father Credit for Discovery, Gives Interesting Lecture at Memorial Gallery in The Post Express (Rochester NY), March 17, 1919—

A lecture on “Camouflage and Protective Coloration” was delivered yesterday afternoon by Gerald H[anderson] Thayer at the Memorial Art Gallery. Dr. [Benjamin] Rush Rhees introduced the speaker as “the illustrious son of an illustrious father, to both of whom belongs the credit for the discovery of the principles of camouflage and protective coloration.”

Excerpts from Thayer’s [slide illustrated] presentation are as follows—

Just how much of the camouflage used in the war is the result of the work of my father, Abbott [Handerson] Thayer, and myself is not certain. We did not have any influence on the dazzle system eventually used at sea, which was planned to deceive the man at the periscope, so much as on the early marine system or the method employed on land.

•••

Our book published before the war [Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, 1909] was used in England, France and Germany. At first everything was fantastically camouflaged, and not very effectively, but later the only method used was to prop up on poles nets of cord or wire to which were fastened bits of colored burlap. This was made in great quantities in factories behind the lines, and at the front was used to cover guns, earthworks, anything that was to be concealed from airplane cameras. Sticks and dirt from the vincinity would then be thrown on top, and whenever possible the result was tested by asking a friendly plane to take a picture of it.

•••

Darwin’s father was the first to notice that protective coloration was a wild animal trait. My father and I found that there were certain well defined principles. The figure of a pure white duck stands out conspiciously against a pure white backgound. The shadows about the figure give it away. The same figure, with a gray back but with a light underneath is invisible against a gray background. The under parts must be lighter in color to offset the shadow. That is the first principle, called “countershading.” It is very common in North America.

The second is “concealment.” Strangely enough the gourgeous plumage of tropical birds is the best example of this. They are hard to find in their brilliant surroundings.

The third principle is that of “disguise,” when an animal pretends to be what it is not or not to be what it is. The pattern of the coat is like the surroundings. A zebra, for instance, is practically invisible standing against the sky in reeds or a clump of bushes. The woodcock is another only it is like the ground on which it builds its nest. Disguise is found all the way from butterflies to skunks.

Many animals combine two of these principles in their coloration.

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striped camouflage applied as to conceal its direction

Above British steamship Ascutney (center), showing camouflage, with Corle Castle on the right, 1918.

•••

Brian Freeland, “Blue Days at Sea” in Ottawa Citizen (Canada). August 10, 1944—

The storm blew over and the rest of our days was spent in chipping paint, at target practice, and applying camouflage to the ship’s boats…Our last job was finishing the new zebra stripe camouflage on the ship’s motor launch. The stripes are so applied that it is difficult to tell whether one has three boats approaching, whether two are going in opposite directions, or what you will. Our last naval act was to lower her tenderly into the sea, and beam with pride as, like Stephen Leacock’s Ronald, she rode madly off in all directions.

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Friday, September 12, 2025

ass o' nine tails / a camouflaged donkey embellished

Above Illustration titled Camouflaged (signature unclear but possibly by Charles H. Wright) for the front cover of Judge magazine (March 9, 1918).

•••

CAMOUFLAGE in Steed’s Review (London) September 9, 1918—

Mr. Louis Sonolet [French author and historian] gives an interesting account of the rapid growth of the art of camouflage, in The World's Work [later The Review of Reviews]. He says that General de Castelnau is responsible for the development of this necessary addition to an army’s equipment. At least, he was the first great leader who showed a lively interest in the work of the camoufleurs. He fitted up a workshop for them at Amiens, which was as well furnished with tools as possible. Since then there has been great progress, and every army in the field today has a special section, attached to the first regiment of engineers and commanded by a sub-lieutenant.

The first man to apply the art of camouflage in the present war was an instructor of artillery named Guirand de Scevola, who had acquired some mastery in the painting of portraits. It struck him that his guns would be much less easily picked out by enemy airplanes if they were painted in exact imitation of the spots on which they were placed. His experiment proved immensely successful, and very soon he began to gather volunteers around him. For the most part the men who came to him were artists whose names were celebrated throughout France. He is now the head of the entire camouflage division and has general charge of all the sections. Each of these includes from eighty to ninety men, but of them only perhaps a dozen are artists. The greater part of the strength is made up with skilled workmen—joiners, plasterers, carpenters, fitters and setters. The manufacture of materials used in camouflage is a large operation. It takes place in Paris in a huge central workshop, where 2500 women are employed, and some 150 soldiers belonging to the reserve.

A commander of a group of batteries who wishes to screen his guns places himself in communication with the head of the section, who at once sends out a foreman by special motor car. This man reconnoitres the position, and makes out a list of what is required. He then returns to his headquarters at speed and the work of preparation is immediately begun. When the different elements constituting the camouflage are ready they are hastened by motor lorry to their destination, and are put in position. This always done at night, and the greatest care is taken to avoid any noise. It is a very hard task to set up camouflage in this way, especially in front trenches.

Camouflage operations fall into two distinct categories. The first deceives the enemy by means of perspective, and the second hides and protects something or someone from enemy blows by means of deception. The ingenuity of the camoufleurs is specially shown in the subtle imitation of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms. Behind the line entire villages of huts have lost that uniform and tedious wood coloring which conforms to the general pattern, and are painted almost luxuriously in tones of emerald or brown, while rustic thatch replaces the traditional corrugated iron. So well is the disguising done that M. Sonulet is able to tell of a pigeon house abandoned by the pigeons who were no longer able to recognise it when it was clothed with the colour of the forests round it! Horses with light coats must resign themselves to being painted from head to foot with a stone color, especially prepared for the purpose.

The camoufleurs, though they know how to improvise when chance brings them face to face with an unforeseen contingency, are none the less obedient to a mass of principles and rules. Camouflage is a science as well as an art, and has to be carefully studied. A series of lectures are given, and it is in the schools of the French camoufleurs that Englishmen, Americans and Belgians, entrusted in their armies with the same work, have been trained. The camoufleurs are very popular indeed in the army, not only for the services they render, but also for their “go" and liveliness and the spark of imagmation which they bring into the midst of the cruel realities of war.

Camouflage is, of course, no new art. It has always existed, and the famous Horse of Troy is perhaps the oldest example of it. Shakespeare tells us of how Malcolm's army advanced to the attack of Dunsinane screened by big leafy branches which each soldier had been ordered to carry. In the Middle Ages towers and walls were painted with black and white squares, the better to hide the loopholes.

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Cover of Tambour Battant by Louis Sonolet

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Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Cubist Camouflage / she had heard of Jacob Epstein

Jacob Epstein portrait by George Charles Beresford / 1916

Edith Nesbit, CUBIST CAMOUFLAGE, in the Melbourne Leader (Melbourne AU), July 27, 1918, p. 50—

Miss Morbydde was throughly up to date…[she] was abreast of her times; she had heard of the [Jacob] Epstein Venus, all right, and knew that there was an eccentricity called Cubism. That a pupil should desire instruction in this eccentric art seemed to be only one more of the surprises which modern life inexhaustibly supplied to Miss Morbydde. By the greatest good fortune a Cubist Artist was found not too far from the school, an elderly foreigner of obscure nationality and doubtful cleanliness, warranted, to Miss Morbydde’s experience, as wholly safe.

“Of course, I understand Cubist art,” she assured Sir Moses. “Another pupil is to have lessons this term. It happens that a Cubic Artist is available. An elderly foreigner. He occupies a lodge on my estate. He cuts wood; he admires the shape of the logs. All angles, you know. No, he is not mad. But he is wholly unattractive.”

Portrait of Jacob Epstein / photographer unknown

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Monday, September 8, 2025

WWI anti-German propaganda cartoon puzzle pig

Above As in all wars, there was no limit to propaganda during World War I. Allies referred to Germans as Huns, Boche—and portrayed them as non-human savages.

This is one example of an anti-German cartoon, a folding paper puzzle. The top image shows the flat unfolded puzzle picture of what appears to be four pigs. Where is the fifth pig? it asks in French. And when the paper is folded, as shown in the lower half, the pigs have magically become a German officer and his helmet.

Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Actor James Cagney trained as camoufleur in WWI

James Cagney (1932), film lobby card

Joann Rhetts, A LOOK AT A LEGEND, in The News and Courier (Charleston SC) April 5, 1986, p. 7—

The young James [Cagney, Hollywood film star] had a notion of becoming an artist, even entered Columbia University during World War I under an ROTC-type program as an artist assigned to a military camouflage unit.

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WWI camouflage in a vacant lot in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Fundraising on Charles River

Above and below These are not photographs of the Cedar Rapids fundraising event described below in this post. Rather, they show a comparable funding event in Boston, on the Charles River, in which small-scale dazzle-camouflaged boats are used to attract a larger audience.

•••

CAMPAIGN ON THE BOOM in Cedar Rapids Gazette (Cedar Rapids IA), April 10, 1918—

The Great Lakes Naval Training Station band, one of the most noted organizations of its kind in the world, paid Cedar Rapids a visit late yesterday afternoon and gave a marching concert downtown. The band minus the presence of the famous leader, John Phillip Sousa, is on an extended tour of the middle west states in the interest of the Liberty Loan. Coming to this city from Mount Vernon [Iowa] over the interurban, the band paraded the business district and was given a big ovation at every corner. A drill team of eight jackies in uniform gave a gun drill at several points where the band halted.

Considerable interest is being manifest in the camouflage illustrations in the vacant lot at Third Avenue and Third Street. The odd pieces are painted in the same colors as guns in the war zone which are camouflaged to prevent being located by the enemy’s big guns. It is also a boost for the Third Liberty Loan, asking the people not to compel Cedar Rapids to camouflage its final subscription.

camouflaged recruiting boats

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dieting is on the way out and camouflage is coming in

Above The inverse of weight reduction by camouflage: A progression of photographs showing the stage make-up applied to an actor by British artist Cavendish Morton for the portrayal of Falstaff. Below are comparable make-up progressions for King Lear and Don Quixote.

•••

Anon, DIET IS GOING OUT, CAMOUFLAGE COMING IN, SAYS MODERN SYSTEM in Omaha Daily Bee (Omaha NE) November 27, 1917, p. 9—

The value of camouflage is spreading like wildfire in all directions, and there is almost nothing you won’t be able to do with it, when it has been throughly applied.

At the style review in Chicago, Mme Le Mar is instructing women how to disguise themselves so that they may have double chins that won’t show. And if you don’t look as if you had a double chin, you might as well have as many as are comfortable. A little science in the way you dress and hold your head will give the optical illusion of a perfect outline at the throat.

Diet is going out. The really modern system is camouflage.

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Saturday, August 30, 2025

Glen Gano / US actor, cinematographer, camoufleur

Actor and Hollywood cameraman Glen Gano (1892-1973), born in Kokomo IN, was the cinematographer for four Three Stooges productions: Booby Dupes, Micro-Phonies, Idiots Dulux, and The Yoke’s on Me. But, prior to that, he was also a US Army camoufleur. On January 11, 1918, the Corvallis [OR] Gazette Times included an article titled CAMOUFLAGERS DUE FOR FRANCE VISIT HERE BEFORE DEPARTURE.

Gano, according to the article, “came here from Camp American University [Washington DC] with John F. Byrne… Both soldiers beong to a camouflage corps, Company F of the Twenty-fourth Engineers, who are about to go to France. Private Byrne is a former Carnegie Institute of Technology student and last night entertained [students from that school] at his home…

Showing that psychologists are at work in assigning young men to the positions they are best fitted, Private Byrne…being a [scene] decorator, was assigned to camouflage.

For a wholly different reason, Mr. Gano, who enlisted at Los Angeles, was detailed for camouflage because he was familiar with outdoor photograpy, and was competent to arrange scenes which might easily deceive the German and Austrian expert scouts in the air.

Mr. Gano, in speaking of the reasons impelling him to enlist, said that war could not be more hazardous than going over cliffs in automobiles, lassoing moving locomotives and the like [as he has done as an actor in Hollywood films]. “As a class we want to show the nation that screen actors have more enduring qualities than curly locks, and ‘looking pretty’ in close-ups,” Mr. Gano said.

According to Wikipedia: “On December 6, 1915, during the filming of an episode of the serial The Hazards of Helen, Gano, reportedly acting as a stunt double for the film's star, suffered what, over the next few days, would be described variously as ‘a fatal fall,’ ‘tragic death,’ ‘injuries from which he will probably die,’ (aka ‘probably fatal injuries’), making an ill-fated leap from the 4th Street Bridge in Los Angeles. Thankfully, reports of his demise proved premature.”

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Thursday, August 28, 2025

Ezra Pound / on vorticism and WWI ship camouflage

Above John Everett, SS Sardinian (Allan Line) discharging 6-in Shells made in Canada, c1918, as published in Canadian War Records Office, ART & WAR: Canadian War Memorials. London, c1920.

•••

Ezra Pound, “The Death of Vorticism” in The Little Review, February / March 1919, pp. 45 and 48—

It may be said that after all kinds of naval camouflage without satisfaction the government has at last put a Vorticist lieutenant [Edward Wadsworth] in charge of the biggest port in England [at Liverpool]; that the French aesthetic camouflagists working on theory and at a distance from the sea-bord, are unsatisfactory and that their work has to be corrected.

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a rich beauty of color is given to camouflaged ships

Charles Dickens (c1860s)

C. Lewis Hind, ART AND I. New York: John Lane Company, 1921, p. 323—

“…Paul and John Nash are originals, They were a cult before 1914. Now they are emerging, but they keep their quaint vision. Spencer Pryse is a classicist, who dips classicism into a bath of graceful and forceful modernity. Muirhead Bone was a past master in architectural drawings before the war. The sights he has seen have had little effect upon his art. He remains a searching and exquisite draftsman. John Everett has seen the rich beauty of color in the camouflaged ships. He is the most gallant of the war artists; he gives to these ships a beauty—“

John Everett, Lepanto (1918)

I paused, because Mr. X was not listening. He was smiling at his own thoughts, and as he smiled he began to turn the pages of [Charles Dickens’] American Notes.

“You used the word ‘gallant,’ sir. It is a favorite word with Mrs. X, and on more than one occasion she has applied it to Charles Dickens. And upon my word, sir, I think Madame is right. In the early portion of American Notes he refers to the beauty of the ladies of Boston, and on page 108 he uses almost precisely the same term in reference to the ladies of New York.

“There was no camouflage about Charles Dickens—no, sir!”…

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Wednesday, August 27, 2025

camouflaged armored car devised in Massachusetts

Capt Renwick with camouflaged armored car (1917)

FORMER BAY STATE OFFICER OFFERS US ARMY NEW TYPE OF ARMORED CAR: Invention of Capt William G. Renwick Given Tryout by Officers of Northeastern Department in The Boston Globe, September 2, 1917—

The Department of the Northeast has been offered for inspection and adoption an armored car designed by and manufactured under the inspection of a New England officer, Captain William G. Renwick, formerly of the 8th Massachusetts Regiment.…

A striking feature of the car as it stood on the avenue this morning was the fact that it is painted in “camouflage,” which at a distance renders it practically invisible. Those who did not understand this fact, expressed their opinion that the car “looked as if it had been through hard service and he ought to paint it over again.” The car is covered with a mixture of gray, green and pink coloring irregularly placed and is not as attractive as it is efficient. Entrance to the car is at the top though a manhole in the protective covering. The occupants are completely hidden from sight, with only openings in the armor for the machine guns.…”

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Monday, August 25, 2025

sudden death of a WWI cannon camoufleur in Ohio

Above Interior view of Morgan Engineering plant (1915). Note camouflaged cannon in left foreground.

•••

CANNON CAMOUFLAGER SUCCUMBS SUDDENLY in Pittsburgh Press, September 11, 1919—

Lisbon OH—The body of A. W. Taylor, aged 50, who died suddenly in a hotel here yesterday, is being held in an effort to find relatives. Taylor during the war was employed at the Morgan Engineering plant at Alliance. He was a painter and camouflaged many cannon sent to the war zone.

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Sunday, August 24, 2025

stark bands of velvet breaking up colors throughout

Unidentified WWI American ship camouflage

PANTOMIME DRESSES in The Age (Melbourne, Australia), December 23, 1918—

…of the dresses worn in the pantomime at Her Majesty’s Theatre [London], the one that will be most discussed is the Dame’s “camouflage attire.” The camouflage of ships has been perfectly reproduced in an amazing costume of rich colors and materials, bands of black velvet breaking up colors in all directions.…

Pantomime with harlequins

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Saturday, August 23, 2025

a checkered harlequin with the camouflage of mockery

Harlequin costume

Henry C. Rowland, Cross-Bearings, in The Meriden Daily Journal (Meriden CT) July 13, 1921—

A cold chill struck through the singer. She had heard that Americans were like that: of steel construction with a camouflage of mockery, resembling deadly destroyers with their harlequin paintwork.

Heinrich Koch

Above Heinrich Koch (1896-1934) dressed in a checkered pattern for a costume party (perhaps at the Dessau Bauhaus).

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Thursday, August 21, 2025

Salt Lake City camouflage / World Wars One and Two

USS Salt Lake City (1944) / WW2 Camouflage

SALT LAKERS MAKE EFFORT TO ENROLL FOR "CAMOUFLAGE": Would Aid in Art of Concealing Military Movements and Secrets, in The Deseret News (Salt Lake City UT), September 13, 1917—

While there is an active movement on among the young artists, tradesmen and mechanicians of the city, in support of the service, so far as is known, Gilbert White [1877-1939] is probably the only Salt Laker as yet actually belonging to American "camouflage," although it is possible that Girard V.B. [Van Barkaloo] Hale [1886-1958], who has been associated with Mr. White in art work, also may transfer from the American Ambulance section which he has joined to "camouflage." Mr. White went east to join the "camouflage" movement before it was actually announced that the government proposed to form a company.

Henry Oberndorfer, some time ago, made application to join the company and other local men are interested.

Not only men familiar with art work, but those of various trades and sciences are required in the "camouflage." It Is understood that the first company formed will join the Pershing expedition in France very soon and that it will be composed of about 200 men.

George [Seeley] Heermance [Sr. (1886-1930)], scene painter at the Wilkes [Theatre], has been drafted for the national army. It is possible that after enlistment he may apply to join this or a later "camouflage" company…

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Wednesday, August 20, 2025

camoufleur Bérard made Chantecler farm yard scene

costume from Chantecler

Back in 2014, we blogged about the French stage designer Louis Bérard, perhaps best known as "le decorateur de Chantecler," a wonderfully zany satirical play by Edmund Rostand, in which all the actors were dressed in animal costumes (as shown above). But he was also a camoufleur for the French during World War I. More recently, we've found a different news article on his life and work, reprinted below.

•••

SCENERY FOR WAR: M. [Louis] Bérard of "Chantecler" Fame a Camouflage Artist in The Spokesman-Review (Spokane WA) May 28, 1918—

Camouflage is an art which attracts the best artists who have been engaged for some time in painting scenery for war.

In Paris there are many studios, employing thousands of men and women. In Montmartre there is a studio where young American artists of the Latin Quarter are busy camouflaging for the American front. Not only guns, but motor trucks, buildings—whole villages even—have to be made to appear what they are not, which, indeed, is the essence of camouflage.

A French scene painter, M. [Louis] Bérard, was one of the inventors of war camouflage. For the last 35 years he has been the leading French scene painter, to whose genius was due the scenic triumphs of the Sardou and Rostand plays. It was he who created the marvelous farm yard scene in Chantecler, and it was the trees which he built for this play which gave him the idea for the observation posts which look like trees.

When war broke out M. Bérard had turned 60 years of age, but he at once offered his services to the French government, and asked to be allowed to go to the front to develop his ideas of camouflage.

With the assistance of his expert pupils he created "lakes" where there was no water, "forests" where no trees grow, and thousands of guns, huts and artillery emplacements changed their hue as the seasons advanced. When M. Bérard put the finishing touches to a particular important piece of work he would go up in an airplane to obtain the same view as that afforded to the Boche.

•••

Note In Cécile Coutin's Tromper l'ennemi (2012) Louis Bérard (1865-1920) is described as an accessoiriste de théatre (property man) who served in the Section de Camouflage (1914-15) as a camouflage instructor at the studio at Amiens. She includes a three-page section on "Louis Bérard and His Contribution to the Invention of Camouflage" (pp. 48-51). It will require translation, since the text is in French.

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Saturday, August 16, 2025

blue paint hard to clean up / never camouflaged again

Tree Branches Used as Camouflage during WWI

TOLD HARRY LAUDER HOW HIS SON DIED in Lewiston Evening Journal (Lewiston ME), December 30, 1918—

“Ever do any camouflage work?” was asked him [Harry Barton, Canadian scenic designer who served in the Canadian Flying Corps during World War I, and as a scenery painter for the Luttringer Stock Company in Lewiston).

“Once,” said he, and again that wide smile flitted over his face. He dabbled a bit of brown onto the sketch he was making, and added a bit of high light here and there. “Only once. An officer called me over one day. ‘You have been a scenic artist, haven’t you, Barton?” he asked me. “Yes sir,” I said. “Then take that canvas and let’s see what you can do to cover that gun over there.” He got his little folding camp chair and sat down to watch me camouflage the gun. I arranged the canvas and the scaffold to work from. I didn’t care for the job. I had about all the work I wanted flying. He followed me about with his little chair. Finally I was working right over his head, and some way a can of ultramarine blue got overturned right on top of him. He was the bluest officer you ever saw, he was blue for days. It is a hard color to get rid of. Strangely enough, I was never called upon again for camouflage work.

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Norman Wilkinson / UK dazzle camoufleur lives again

British artist / camoufleur Norman Wilkinson

Now here’s an odd discovery: The British artist Norman Wilkinson (we've blogged about him numerous times) is credited as the innovator of what is now commonly known as “dazzle painting,” the use of disruptive geometric designs during World War I for ship camouflage. His usual biographical dates are 1878-1971. Shown above is a portrait photograph from 1911 (restored and AI colorized), in advance of the war, at which time he was working for the Illustrated London News.

Here’s the oddity: On February 16, 1934, an article in the Glasgow Herald stated that—

Mr. Norman Wilkinson, the well-known scenic and poster artist, who died yesterday at his home in London, is perhaps best remembered as the inventor of naval camouflage during the war. For the sake of distinction, it was called “dazzle” painting, and its object was to so distort the normal appearance of a vessel that her actual course became a matter of doubt to an enemy submarine officer intending to torpedo the ship. Earlier forms of camouflage had proved much less successful than “dazzle” painting.…

That announcement of course does not comply with later accounts of Wilkinson’s life, which state that he died in 1971. Fortunately, in a subsequent issue (February 23), the Glasgow Herald said this instead—

We very much regret that in our issue of February 16 we published a paragraph announcing the death in London of Mr. Norman Wilkinson, “the scenic artist,” and remembering the versatility of the celebrated inventor of marine camouflage we assumed from the brief notice of information that it was he who had died. We therefore offer full apology to Mr.Wilkinson for the erroneous report unwittingly circulated and for the confusion and embarrassment inseparable from the addition of his name to the now considerable list of distinguished men who have lived to read their own obituary notices.

Wilkinson, Dazzle Scheme Components (c1917)

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Friday, August 15, 2025

Picasso, camouflage, and the moth known as Picasso

Above This is, believe it or not, an insect called the Picasso Moth, known scientifically as Baorisa hieroglyphica. It was discovered by the British entomologist Frederic Moore in 1882, when artist Pablo Picasso was one year old. Surely, it was given his name (probably after World War I) because people came to believe (thanks to Gertrude Stein in part) that he had invented wartime camouflage. Not so, but the error continues. That assumption was emboldened by rumors (as in quotes below) during WWII that Picasso had somehow served as a camouflage advisor for the French government.

That there are resemblances between certain aspects of Cubism and WWI camouflage is undeniable. And yes, Picasso (and untold others) saw those resemblances. But he did not originate the practice during WWI. See my earlier online essay on this.

•••

Anon, from Le Devoir (Montreal), May 30, 1940—

The godfather of camouflage
Camouflage, which has truly become an official weapon of war since there are now regular sections to which specialists are attached, is a French invention of the other war. It began with the substitution of conspicuous uniforms, from red, to blue and gold, to horizon blue, to the colors of the earth and the sky, then to khaki, less messy, and especially less lamentable as it becomes increasingly worn.

What few people know is that the official godfather of camouflage is none other than the inventor of cubism, Pablo Picasso. An official asked that artist, with tongue in cheek, for his advice on how to make men invisible to the enemy. Picasso, in all seriousness, replied, "Dress them as harlequins..!" It was a joke which others took seriously and was soon adopted, for it is indeed in harlequin patterns, in effect, that the factories, the cannons, the vehicles, and even the ships, are now disguised.

•••

Anthony Marino, in “He’d Like to Hear What Artists Think,” a letter to the editor in The Pittsburgh Press, November 26, 1944—

I was not surprised when [Pablo] Picasso was placed at the head of the camouflage department in France; nor when [Homer] St. Gaudens was placed at the head of the same department in this country. Both were given the job of making “something” look like “nothing.” Both had already demonstrated their aptitude at the much more difficult task of making “nothing” look like “something!”

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Thursday, August 14, 2025

camouflage artist's profile appears on Buffalo nickel

Buffalo Nickel

Ramon D. Forbes, NUMISMATIC NOTES in Philatelic West (Lincoln NE), Nebraska Philatelic Society, 1918—

I wonder how many of the readers of Philatelic West who carry Buffalo nickels in [their] pockets realize that they have the likeness of one of Uncle Sam's fighting men in their possession.

Corporal Robert G. Harper, who posed for the Indian head of the buffalo nickel, has arrived at Camp Sherman, and has been assigned to the 309th Engineers [as a camoufleur]. Harper, of French-Indian descent, was born in the Mohawk Valley in northern New York, answered the call of the West and spent many years on the Western plains. When James Earle Frazer of New York received the commission to execute the design for the new nickel, Harper was secured as a model.…

•••

NICKEL "HEAD" QUITS POSING, Model for Coin Will Aid in Plastic Surgery, in Painesville Telegraph (Painesville OH) August 6, 1930, p. 3—

The "Buffalo Nickel Indian"—Robert G. Harper—has turned from a career of modeling for artists to helping plastic surgery within the reach of every man.

Harper, former local high school athlete and World War camouflage artist, has left Yale Art School, where he posed for sculpture classes, to become a "Plastic Surgeon's Plastic Expert" in the staff of the New York City Health Department, which hopes to bring such operations within the means of the average man.

Although not an Indian [sic], Harper's appearance fulfills the common impression of an American Indian. In addition to posing for the head of the Indian on the five-cent piece, Harper has posed for many noted statues.

News photograph of Robert G. Harper

•••

'FORGOTTEN MAN' ON NICKEL PAYS VISIT TO BINGHAMTON, in Binghamton (NY) Press and Sun-Bulletin, September 12, 1938, p. 5—

The man who claims to be behind the face on the disappearing Buffalo nickel gave Binghamton a quick once-over Saturday afternoon.

He is Robert G. Harper, World War veteran, model and sculptor, who stopped off between trains at the Lackawanna station while en route to the veterans' hospital at Bath.

"It's a funny thing," he said, "here's the place I was born, and I haven't been here in years. My birthplace was an old Mohawk Indian reservation, near Union, a site which now is occupied by an Endicott Johnson factory."

His grandmother and mother, he said, were full-blooded Mohawk Indians.

"Not only were my features the most prominent on the nickel," Mr. Harper said, "but I also used for the statue of a running soldier right here in Binghamton at the end of Memorial Bridge [on a war memorial sculpture titled "The Skirmisher" by Robert Ingersoll Aiken]"…

Robert Ingersoll Aiken, The Skirmisher

NOTE: It is sometimes claimed that the profile on the Buffalo nickel is not that of Robert G. Harper, but of another Native American, named Wolf Robe.

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