Art and
camouflage:
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso and his artist
friends were inspired to create
art using simple geometric and
interlocking shapes.
Together,
between 1907 and 1911, they
came up with a new art
movement called Cubism.
Picasso was more interested
in art than war, but he thought
a lot about camouflage during
World War One when he was
living in Paris.
He suggested
that the French army trade
their blue uniforms for
harlequin costumes.
Do you
think he was being serious?
Picasso’s friend, the writer
Gertrude Stein, remembered
being with Picasso in Paris at the
beginning of the war when a truck
painted in camouflage pattern
passed by:
‘. . . we had heard of
camouflage but we had not yet
seen it and Picasso amazed looked
at it and then cried out, yes it was
we who made it, that is cubism’.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
• In 1940, the British War Office
sought advice from
a magician,
a zoologist and a surrealist artist
when developing camouflage for
the army. Why do you think they
chose these people?
• If you were going to try
camouflaging yourself at home
or at school, what would you
do or wear?
Pablo Picasso,
Tête d’homme (Head of a man)
1908
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
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