Boyd P. Joy and Gerald V. Cannon founded Joy & Cannon Scenic Co. The studio first appeared in St. Paul Directories in 1916. Yesterday, I explored the life of Joy. Today, I look at the life of G. V. Cannon, who was not only a scenic artist, but also the first camouflage artist of the United States Marine Corps. He held the world record for this work during his lifetime and was recognized for it.
I have uncovered very little about the Cannon’s early life. By 1915, however, he was living at 4144 38th Ave S. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Much may have to do with the itinerant life of many scenic artists.
On Dec. 22, 1917, the “Dickinson Press” mentioned Joy & Cannon in the article “Stage Scenery is installed in New Rialto Theatre” (Stark City, ND Dec 22, 1917). The article reported, “The stage scenery and effects have been put in place in the new Rialto theatre during the past week of the personal supervision of the artist who painted the curtains, G. N. [sic.] Cannon of the Joy & Cannon Scenic Co., St. Paul. The drop curtains are as follows: Asbestos, advertising front curtain, street scene, rose garden scene, wood scene, parlor and kitchen curtains. The scenic work has been done in the new modern art, stippled urban effects, lately inaugurated in the scenic work of large theatres in the east. The effect is very odd, but highly pleasing to the eye.” This is the earliest mention that I have encountered to date about the contemporary spattering technique. I find it interesting that it was called “stippling” at the time.
Shortly after the Joy & Cannon Scenic Co. opened, Cannon on another project for the U.S. Government during WWI. I came across and article that I find absolutely fascinating about not only Cannon, but also mentioned the history of camouflage painting. In 1950, the “Star Tribune” published an article on Gerald V. Cannon entitled, “Minnesota’s ‘Little Marine’ Just Keeps Growing” (5 Nov. 1950, page 21). I am posting the article in its entirety as it has great significance within the history of American scenic art.
“There’s a line in one of the censored verse of ‘Mademoiselle From Armentieres’ which goes ‘The little marine he grew and grew.’
The boys hereabouts seem to think that if a line ever applied to anybody in real life, it applies to Jerry Cannon.
More sedately, he’s Gerald V. Cannon, a scenic artist by profession who still makes up an occasional marine corps float or a spectacular sign. Its come to be a habit through 33 years of association with the corps.
Cannon will be present at the corps 175th anniversary dinner Friday night at the Nicollet hotel. Governor Youngdahl, Mayors Hoyer of Minneapolis and Delaney of St. Paul and various other functionaries also will attend, along with wives and mothers of marines now in service.
He now is national service officer for the Marine Corps league, the only veterans’ organization incorporated by act of congress. He is also state service officer under the auspices of the department of veteran’s affairs.
In that job, he is but carrying on a practice built up on his own time between two wars. Cannon was a marine in World War I. Prior to that, he had been called upon to organize the first unit to specialize in the brand new art of camouflage. Cannon gathered together a half gross of scenic artists. When they had learned what they had to know, they were split up among the services. Cannon chose the marines and began an extra-curricular career from which he never since has been separated for long.
After the war he helped found three marine groups, each of which perished through inaction. But Cannon made it his business to keep in touch with marines and marine veterans and to pull what wires were necessary to help them.
He became a sort of special in veterans’ rights and made up for his small stature by fast talk and aggressiveness.
When World War II came along, Cannon had retired from the reserve as a captain with 100 per cent disability because of a heart condition. He went right back in, as a staff sergeant attached to the Minneapolis marine office. Through a foul-up, he got orders to report to Parris Island for boot training. A few days nearly did him in. Representative Melvin Maas rescued him by getting the orders changed and Cannon was shipped back to Minneapolis.
During the subsequent years, he indulged in his hobby of helping out marines and ex-marines. After being discharged he went to the Marine Corps league as a service officer.
His years of association with the marines have been a great help in cutting red tape. On his frequent trips to Washington, Cannon first-names big brass and walks right into offices which would be at least temporarily off-limits to almost anyone else.
Cannon through the years has loaded himself with marine corps lore, and documented a good bit of it by collecting relics.
He was a scene designer, for instance, for an Otis Skinner touring company of ‘Kismet.” Among the props was a handsome ivory-handled knife – no stage piece but a real article from Tripoli, dating back to their time the marines made their historic landing there in 1803.
After the tour ended, the knife was presented to Canon. He now keeps its tip sheathed in tape because it’s supposed to be made of poisoned steel.
The knife gave him some anxious moments a few years ago, when he was running a restaurant in the Midway district and had it on display with other relics.
Someone broke into the place and took, among other things, the knife. Both because it was a valuable souvenir and a dangerous weapon as well, Cannon left no stone unturned to get it back.
At length he and the police tracked it down. A bunch of kids were playing with it, using it in a game of cops and robbers. (The knife will be on display at the State theater when the movie ‘Tripoli,’ depicting the Tripoli incident opens there Friday. The timing of the picture and the dinner is purely coincidental.”
An avid collector, Cannon often picked up books and relics in his travels as a scenic artist. In an old history of the Civil war he found a penciled map indicating a gunroom at old Fort Jackson, at the mouth of the Mississippi, had been sealed up.
He got a government commission to open it and dug through three feet of cement. In the room he found many rare pieces including a dozen large lamps. One of them, given him by the government adorns his home at Cleveland avenue and Ramsey county road B. The house is li furnished with similar items.
Among them are a couple of hand-wrought nails from the home of Betsy Ross. A marine happened to be guarding the place when Cannon visited as it was being repaired, and a wink from one marine to another seems to mean something.
Busy as he has been, Cannon foresees an even busier time ahead. For one thing, veterans are in a peculiar position, as far as their rights are concerned; while theoretically convened by provisions involving ‘hazardous duty’ or ‘simulated warfare,’ the United States is not actually at was. This, he thinks, will affect claims coming out of Korea.
The men who appeal to him for help, however, are confident of his ability. The little marine, they think, grew until he knows as much about the marine corps and its procedures as anybody up or down the line.”
If you unfamiliar with the hymn of the U. S. Marine Corps, is the oldest official song in the U.S. Armed Forces. Here is a link to a wonderful version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2pFKyOO-7U The music for Marine’s Hymn originally came from the March section of Offenbach’s “Genevieve de Brabant.” When, or who, added the lyrics for the “Marine’s Hymn” to Offenbach’s music remains unknown. The first version of the song was copyrighted, published. and distributed in 1919 by “The Leatherneck,” a Marine Corps magazine printed in Quantico, Virginia.
The 1929 lyrics:
From the Halls of
Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli;
We fight our country’s battles
On the land as on the sea;
First to fight for right and freedom
And to keep our honor clean;
We are proud to claim the title
Of United States Marine.
Our flag’s unfurled to every breeze
From dawn to setting sun;
We have fought in ev’ry clime and place
Where we could take a gun;
In the snow of far-off Northern lands
And in sunny tropic scenes;
You will find us always on the job
The United States Marines
Here’s health to you and to our Corps
Which we are proud to serve;
In many a strife we’ve fought for life
And never lost our nerve;
If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven’s scenes;
They will find the streets are guarded
By United States Marines.
To be continued…
