During World War One the development of aerial surveillance led to the need for camouflaged guns, equipment and buildings. Artists were initially employed to devise ways of confusing the enemy. One of the most innovative and dramatic developments during this period was the attempt to confuse German U-boats by creating Dazzle ships. Dazzle was the brainchild of marine painter Norman Wilkinson in 1917 and was intended to confuse German U-boat commanders as to the speed and course of a ship.
Dazzle designs provide some of the most dramatic exhibits in the show and include the original plans and ship models from the Museum’s collections.
Wilkinson’s colleague, the Vorticist artist Edward Wadsworth, oversaw the application of the Dazzle patterning in British shipyards. It even inspired his later paintings – some of which are also shown in the exhibition.
It was, however, the French military who instigated a structured approach to the development of camouflage. The need to tone down the colourful army uniforms of the 19th century really came to a head during trench warfare on the Western Front, and it was the French who set up the military camouflage unit to respond to the needs of their soldiers during that bloody conflict.
Although pioneers, the French were in many ways lagging behind both their foes and their allies. Large swathes of the French Army entered the war on the Western Front wearing a uniform of ‘horizon blue’ whilst others wore an eye-catching royal blue with scarlet trousers.
By this time the British and Commonwealth forces and the Austrian German forces had adopted a much more functional khaki and field uniform.
Perhaps it was this oversight that forced their hand, and much like the artists in the UK, who later worked on the Dazzle ship programme, the French Army’s pioneering group comprised mainly artists who used Cubist techniques to hide equipment and to make uniforms less visible. Some of these fascinating uniform patterns, hand painted by the French camoufleurs, are featured in the exhibition.
The First World War not only gave rise to innovative techniques of concealment but also of deception. The exhibition boasts examples of bizarre but lifelike dummy heads, specially created by the sculptor Henry Bouchard out of papier mâché which were and popped above trenches by the Allies to try and locate the position of German snipers.
For their part the Germans developed an innovative panel camouflage design to break up the familiar silhouette of their coal scuttle-shaped helmets, which in turn became a sought after prize for trophy-seeking Allied soldiers.
Elsewhere the Western Front became littered with innovative camouflage devices that ranged from camouflaged nets over gun pits to snipers bedecked in green foliage-covered robes, and observation posts disguised as shattered tree trunks.
By the time of the Second World War the business of military camouflage became a much more sophisticated affair and the exhibition traces how scientists, including the zoolologist Hugh Cott, played a part in developing techniques of concealment and deception in this period.
Cott was joined by a large community of creative people including the architect Hugh Casson, advertising designer Ashley Havinden and Surrealist painter Roland Penrose.
Military operations were often accompanied by the deployment of dummy tanks, dummy ships and fake landing craft, whilst the exploits of magician turned camouflage and deception expert Jasper Maskelyne and his Magic Gang managed to conceal Alexandria and the Suez Canal with deployment of decoys and lights.
On a more prosaic level, most of the major powers developed their own distinct brands of camouflage material for uniforms during World War Two and the exhibition features some of the most famous patterns – some of them still in use today.
In recent decades camouflage has infiltrated popular culture and is as likely to be seen as a uniform for anti-war protestors as it is being worn by the men and women stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The exhibition closes by looking at the post-war period and the way camouflage has influenced and inspired artists and designers.
The famous camouflage prints of Andy Warhol are included together with art by Alain Jacquet and Boetti. Also on display are modern examples of street style by Maharishi and couture by John Galliano, Philip Treacy, Jean Paul Gaultier, urban camouflage designs by Adelle Lutz for David Byrne’s True Stories.
There is also a ballet costume created by Gerald Scarfe for the English National Ballet’s production of Tchaikovsky’s the Nutcracker.
This latter adoption by the civilian world has given a disruptive pattern a new purpose and somehow brought things full circle – millions now wear camouflage gear not to blend in but to stand out.
