Mary Brush

Mary Taylor Brush (January 11, 1866 – July 29, 1949) was an American aviator, artist, plane designer, and camouflage pioneer.

Personal life Mary Taylor Whelpley was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 11, 1866, to Mary Louise (née Breed) Whelpley and James Davenport Whelpley.

Mary Taylor met George de Forest Brush while studying at Art Students League of New York, where he was her teacher. After eloping, they married in New York City in 1886, on her twentieth birthday. They moved to Quebec initially, and returned to New York after two years. In the late 1890s, her health deteriorated and they briefly relocated to Florence, Italy, for treatment. They would spend some time in that area every year prior to World War I.

Career

Mary Taylor Brush was an early aviator, having trained as a pilot prior to the outbreak of World War I. She designed and patented planes. Parts of one of her planes survive and have been exhibited in Eagles Mere Air Museum, Pennsylvania since 2011.

While other artists employed to develop vehicle camouflage for the war used Modernist techniques to alter color perception, as academic artists, Thayer and the Brushes were said to be inspired by instances of camouflage in nature. Different variations on their proposed designs included giving planes light-colored underbellies and using counter-illumination to render the plane as bright as the sky and thereby, seeming to appear transparent. Exploring counter-illumination techniques, George used varnished silk to dress the plane, but it was not durable enough. Mary Taylor decided to punch holes in parts of the (linen) wings in her designs, pairing this with light bulbs in different parts of the fuselage to scatter light around the plane. She conducted tests of her designs on a plane she flew over Long Island and New Hampshire. Her designs were not used during World War I, but her concept was explored again and tested in World War II, including in the Yehudi lights project.