William Andrew Mackay (1876 - July 26, 1939) was an American artist who created a series of murals about the achievements of

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

. Those three murals, completed in 1936, were installed beneath the rotunda in the Roosevelt Memorial Hall of the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

in New York. Less known but also important, he was a major contributor to the development of ship

camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the ...

in the United States during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Biography

Mackay was born in 1876 in Philadelphia to Elizabeth J. and

Frank F. Mackay Frank Findley Mackay (July 20, 1832 – May 6, 1923) was an American actor and author. He was vice president and the chairman of the executive committee of the Actors Fund of America. He was the founder of the National Congress of Dramatic ...

. After high school, he studied at the City College of New York, the

Académie Julian The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...

in Paris, and the

American Academy in Rome The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo (Janiculum Hill) in Rome. The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. History In 1893, a group of American architects, ...

. As a muralist, he completed projects for the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

, the

Minnesota State House of Representatives The Minnesota House of Representatives is the lower house of the Legislature of the U.S. state of Minnesota. There are 134 members, twice as many as the Minnesota Senate. Floor sessions are held in the north wing of the State Capitol in Saint P ...

, and other locations.

Ship Camouflage

Mackay played a major role in the development of U.S. ship camouflage during World War I, although there are conflicting accounts of the extent of his contributions. According to one report, he experimented with low visibility ship camouflage as early as 1913 (Perry 1919, pp. 138–139). In that source, he is said to have painted a vessel with red, green and violet splotches (not unlike a

Pointillist Pointillism (, ) is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term "Pointillism" wa ...

painting), with the result that, when viewed from a distance, the ship appeared “to melt into sea and sky,” making it less visible than if it had been painted with a flat “battleship gray,” as had been the earlier practice. A later account describes Mackay’s testimony in 1917 at a meeting of the U.S. Navy Consulting Board in Washington D.C. (Crowell 1921, p. 496). In that presentation, he used a toy-like spinning device to demonstrate the visual effects of one or more rotating colored disks (comparable to Maxwell’s disks). One of these disks had been painted with equal components of red, violet and green, while another had green and violet sectors. When the disks were spun, the former appeared as an indistinct gray, while the second produced the appearance of a color described as “the blue of sea water.” On the basis of these demonstrations, Mackay argued (as he had in 1913) that low visibility hues could result when red, green and violet colors were viewed from a sufficient distance. After the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, a scheme devised by Mackay was one of five camouflage “measures” approved by the U.S. Navy Consulting Board for official use on merchant ships. His proposal was subsequently patented in 1919, as U.S. Patent No. 1,305,296, titled “Process of Rendering Objects Less Visible Against Backgrounds.” During World War I, he also served as the head of the camouflage section of the New York District of the

Emergency Fleet Corporation The Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) was established by the United States Shipping Board, sometimes referred to as the War Shipping Board, on 16 April 1917 pursuant to the Shipping Act (39 Stat. 729) to acquire, maintain, and operate merchant shi ...

, for which he supervised the artists who applied camouflage patterns to merchant ships in that district’s harbors (Warner 1919). One of the artists who worked with Mackay during World War I was John D. Whiting, who wrote a semi-fictional book about his own wartime experiences (Whiting 1928), in which it is said that Mackay started a camouflage training school, and published a ''Handbook on Ship Camouflage'' in 1937.

Death

He died on July 26, 1939 of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...

on a subway train at 125th Street and

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

References

External links

Optical Science Meets Visual Art: The Camouflage Experiments of William Andrew Mackay (full text online)

WWI Ship Camouflage

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mackay, William 1876 births 1939 deaths American muralists Military technology Camoufleurs 20th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American male artists

Biography

Ship Camouflage

Death

See also

References

Further reading

External links