Book Review
Ann Elias, Sydney University Press, 2011
There are some prophetic illustrations in Ann Elias’s detailed study of the work of artists and scientists working in tandem in the Camouflage Unit established by the Australian Department of Home Security during the Second World War. From studies into the camouflage tricks of lizards and fish, to some extraordinary installations in the landscape, the work undertaken by Australian artists uncannily prefigures significant art made decades later. While the link to Cubism and early Modernism is always stressed in the story of camouflage, what is particularly exciting about Elias’s study is the evidence that the strategy of linking art and science for a wider social benefit opened the way for artists to exploit other creative opportunities. The result was a diverse series of land art experiments, large scale public sculpture interventions in the landscape, a brilliant series of razzle–dazzle Pop images and some beautiful abstract sculptural forms.
The master technician in this amazing story is Frank Hinder, whose work within the Camouflage Unit was exemplary in moving between the permeable membranes of art and science. Hinder was the right man at the right time, an artist with a cosmopolitan outlook and in tune with international Modernism, who was used to working for clients in commercial advertising. He knew how to employ his skills at the behest of others and when the government called he was able to translate his artistic training and knowledge to develop forms of ‘visual protection’. As Elias explains ‘Camouflage, like cubism and modern design, was a problem of space, light and colour, but understanding how retinal impressions of colour impact on spatial perception was only important in the war zone if it helped save lives’. His