IN-PERSON London Heritages. Section A

Abstract

This research project describes and reframes the 1914-18 War Dazzle Camouflage paint system, designed to protect merchant and Naval ships from submarine attack, as a design practise. Our understanding of Dazzle Camouflage from exhibitions and permanent displays in the United Kingdom contextualise it with modernist or contemporary art works or within wider displays of camouflage. The development and quality of the Dazzle patterns is rarely discussed, but these are the subject of this cross-disciplinary research project that combines design-based research methodologies with archival and literature research to offer analysis and understanding of Dazzle designs and the creative methods through which it was conceived, produced, tested and deployed. The scale of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare necessitated the setting up of a Dazzle Section (in Burlington House) run by a team of artist/designers, including Norman Wilkinson (whose Power at Sea series of paintings from 1939-45 War is exhibited in the Queens House) and Cecil King whose design approach, based on knowledge of shipping and the sea, was highly experimental and deliberately obfuscating. It resulted in the production of over eight hundred beautifully executed plans and ship models whose designs were applied to 2400 ships. Dazzle Camouflage continues to attract public attention and excite imaginations. The Royal Navy have painted their River Class patrol vessels in a form of disruptive camouflage citing Dazzle as an influence. The majority of Dazzle designs are housed in the Imperial War Museum Duxford, unseen by the general public. The original drawings convey the speed, ingenuity, experimentation and care taken to protect merchant and some Naval shipping from submarine attack. The publication of a catalogue of illusory devices employed by the Dazzle Section would enable viewers to read the designs and understand the aims behind them.