Implementing the celebrated Dazzle camouflage scheme of WWI and WWII naval merchant vessels, Charles Mary Kubricht reproduced the painted design on park storage containers located at the Hudson Yards end of the High Line. Originally garnered from the visual language of Cubism, early camouflage studies by Abbott H. Thayer, the general coloring of seagulls, and the final design implementation and promotion for military use by Norman Wilkinson—illustrator-cum-British lieutenant of the Royal Navy—Dazzle painting on commercial ships was once thought to effectively dodge attacks by enemy U-boats.
The evasion was, of course, not a result of the brazenly painted ship camouflaging itself into the sea, but instead a result of artillery rangefinders being unable to determine the painted ship’s distance, course, and speed due to its painted, black-and-white, angular geometry. Beginning in 1918, the American Camouflage Corps began camouflaging merchant ships in various east coast harbors including New York, Boston, and Norfolk, Virginia. Towards the end of WWII, the New York harbor was the busiest in the world with up to five hundred Dazzle camouflaged ships anchored at one time. (via)
(Source: itwonlast)
