Arthur Mole

Arthur Samuel Mole (January 7, 1889 in Lexden, Essex, England – 14 August 1983 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, US) was a British-born, naturalized American commercial photographer. He became famous for a series of "living photographs" made during World War I, in which tens of thousands of soldiers, reservists and other members of the military were arranged to form massive compositions. Although if viewed from the ground or from directly above, these masses of men would appear meaningless, when seen from the top of an 80-foot viewing tower, they clearly appeared to be various patriotic shapes (via anamorphosis). The key was to photograph the people from the one place where the lines of perspective would resolve themselves into intelligible images. His partner in this endeavor was John D. Thomas.Flag Formation
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Living photographs

Mole immigrated to the United States with his family in 1903, when he was 14 years old. He worked as a commercial photographer in Zion, Illinois, north of Chicago. During World War I, he traveled to various Army, Marine and Navy camps to execute his massive compositions. He is considered a pioneer in the field of performed group photography. Executing photographs using such large numbers, and relying on lines of perspective stretching out more than a hundred meters, required a week of preparation and then hours to actually position the formations. Mole would stand on his viewing tower and shout into a megaphone or use a long pole with a white flag to arrange the tens of thousands of soldiers into position.

Ten images are most famous from this period. They include images of Woodrow Wilson, the Liberty Bell, Statue of Liberty, the American Eagle as well as emblems of the YMCA and the Allied flags. ''The Human U.S. Shield'' required the placement of 30,000 people; ''The Liberty Bell'' 25,000.

Mole's work is featured in the collections of the Chicago Historical Society, Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Library of Congress. The photographs were again presented to the public in the July 2007 issue of ''Martha Stewart Living''. Eight of the images are displayed in a feature article.

File:Sincerely yours, Woodrow Wilson 21,000 officers and men, Camp Sherman, Chillicothe, Ohio, Brig. Gen. Mathew C. Smith, commanding - - Mole & Thomas, 915 Medinah Bldg., Chicago, Ill. LCCN2002699751.jpg, "Woodrow Wilson", 21,000 people
File:Liberty Bell composed of 25000 men at Camp Dix 1918.jpg, "The Human Liberty Bell", 25,000 people
File:Human Statue of Liberty; 18,000 officers and men at Camp Dodge, Des Moines, Ia.; Col. Wm. Newman, commanding; Col. Rush S. Wells, directing LCCN2002699754.jpg, "Human Statue of Liberty", 18,000 people
File:Human Statue of Liberty - reverse anamorphic.jpg, Approximation of "The Human Statue of Liberty" from directly above without anamorphosis
File:Human American Eagle.jpg, "The Human American Eagle", 12,500 people
File:Y.M.C.A. emblem formed by officers, men, and camp activity workers at Camp Wheeler, Ga.- Lt. Gen. J.B. Moss (commanding) LCCN2002699756.jpg, YMCA emblem
File:The Living allied flags; Bluejackets at U.S. Naval Training Station, Pelham Bay, New York; William B. Franklin, commander LCCN2002699757.jpg, "The Living Allied Flags"
File:The Human U.S. Shield.jpg, "The Human US Shield", 30,000 people

Post war

As demand for these types of photos dried up Mole returned to his photography studio in Zion, Illinois. According to Karen Schmitt, the Mole & Thomas company donated the profits of their photos to "the returning soldiers and to this country's efforts to re-build their lives."

See also

His technique lives on in a contemporary military public relations context.

File:Size0-army.mil-38894-2009-05-22-000509.jpg, Approximately 5,000 soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division create a human version of the division's distinctive Indianhead patch at Indianhead Stage Field on Camp Casey, Korea, 2009
File:2nd Infantry Division Living Insignia 161221-A-ZZ999-005.jpg, Organising the construction of a living image, 2nd Infantry Division, 2016

Bibliography

Notes

References
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Other sources

*Jensen, Oliver. America's Yesterdays—Images of Our Lost Past Discovered in the Photographic Archives of The Library of Congress. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 1978, pp. 248–49.
*"Arthur S. Mole." The Heartland Project: Illusions of Eden. (18 March 2003).
*Collins, Dan. "Anamorphosis and the Eccentric Observer (Parts 1 and 2)." Leonardo Vol. 25, No. 1 and 2, 1992. Arizona State University. (18 March 2003)
Full text

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mole, Arthur
20th-century American photographers
1983 deaths
1889 births
People from Colchester
People from Zion, Illinois
British emigrants to the United States