Outbreak of War: Camouflage and concealment

The outbreak of war in 1939 seemingly put on hold Charles Mozley’s career as an artist. He joined up as a sapper in the Royal Engineers, but was soon transferred to the Camouflage Unit led by Jack Beddington’s brother, Frederick, a fellow artist and, post war, a director of the renowned art gallery, Wildenstein & Co. Mozley spent two years working on camouflage objectives, and in those years he clearly wanted to make a greater contribution and sought to be appointed an official war artist. In 1941, the committee purchased a painting, which Sir Kenneth Clarke (then Director of the National Gallery) chose to include in the exhibition: ‘Britain at War’ at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Mozley drew a book of cartoons entitled ‘Penny Plain and Tuppence Coloured’ depicting himself applying to be an official war artist. His application did not go ahead given his limited exhibiting history prior to the war, but that did not stop the acquisition of his paintings by the Committee, a number of which are held by the Imperial War Museum. Eileen, his wife, was working for The Ministry of Economic Warfare. Mozley’s powers of observation and camouflage skills were, however, recognised with his transfer in 1942 to Military Intelligence to work on, from the perspective of deception and concealment, the preparations for “Operation Overlord” and the D-Day Invasion in Normandy. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.