Alden Carlson Mason (July 14, 1919 – February 6, 2013)''Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014''.

Social Security Administration The United States Social Security Administration (SSA) is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government that administers Social Security (United ...

. was an American painter from Washington known for creating abstract and figurative artwork. Mason was a professor of art at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

for over 30 years. His painting are held in a number of public collections including the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

, the

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...

, the

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum becam ...

, and the

Milwaukee Art Museum The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection contains nearly 25,000 works of art. Location and Visit Located on the lakefront of Lake Michigan, the Milwaukee Art Museum is one of the largest art museu ...

Early life and education

Mason was born in

Everett, Washington Everett is the county seat and largest city of Snohomish County, Washington, United States. It is north of Seattle and is one of the main cities in the metropolitan area and the Puget Sound region. Everett is the seventh-largest city in the ...

, on July 14, 1919. He grew up on a farm in the

Skagit Valley The Skagit Valley lies in the northwestern corner of the state of Washington, United States. Its defining feature is the Skagit River, which snakes through local communities which include the seat of Skagit County, Mount Vernon, as well as Sed ...

. He described his mother as protective and himself as "a small, skinny kid who couldn't see" that only learned he was in need of glasses as a college sophomore. As a young boy, Mason spent most of his time by himself enjoying the outdoors by bird watching, hiking, and exploring. He recalled a formative moment when a sparrow landed on his fingertip, staying for a few seconds to look into his eyes, that pointed him towards becoming an artist. At age twelve, Mason trapped

muskrat The muskrat (''Ondatra zibethicus'') is a medium-sized semiaquatic rodent native to North America and an introduced species in parts of Europe, Asia, and South America. The muskrat is found in wetlands over a wide range of climates and habitat ...

s to earn money for mail-away

cartooning A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

lessons. He stated "I felt guilty trapping all those muskrats, but I loved cartoons, with figures jumping, hopping and smooching. They were having more fun than I was. They lived in a brighter world." Mason graduated from high school in 1937. He went on to study entomology at the

(UW) in Seattle. While he was hitchhiking home from UW, artist Ray Hill gave him a ride back to the Skagit Valley and stopped at

Deception Pass Deception Pass is a strait separating Whidbey Island from Fidalgo Island, in the northwest part of the U.S. state of Washington. It connects Skagit Bay, part of Puget Sound, with the Strait of Juan de Fuca. A pair of bridges known collectively a ...

for an impromptu watercolor lesson. Mason shifted his focus from science to art following the trip and enrolled in his first art class, studying watercolor painting with Ray Hill. Mason stated "It was really exciting to me; ith my majorI was already interested in the landscape and the things that inhabit the landscape." He earned his

Bachelor of Fine Arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases. Background The Bachelor ...

from the University of Washington in 1942. Mason received his

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

from UW in 1947. Mason's time on a farm in the Skagit Valley was evident in his improvisational paintings in the form of animals and plants (such as sparrows and tulips), themes that reappeared in his artwork throughout his career.

Career

Teaching

After graduating from the UW with his MFA, Mason was offered a job teaching at the UW School of Art. Mason continued as a professor at the UW School of Art from 1949 until 1981, inspiring young artists and friends in the Pacific Northwest. Mason taught many professional artists from the Northwest, most notably

Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...

Roger Shimomura Roger Shimomura (born Roger Yutaka Shimomura in 1939 in Seattle) is an American artist and a retired professor at the University of Kansas, having taught there from 1969 to 2004. His art, showcased across the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico, ...

, Gene Gentry McMahon, and Tim Lord.

Early career and influences, 1938 - 1976

Mason first began serious artistic pursuits when he arrived at the UW in 1938.Hackett, Regina
"Alden Mason a Selected Survey."
(1987) Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington. He found that he had a natural aptitude for

watercolor painting Watercolor (American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the U ...

. The most attractive properties of watercolor for Mason were the same that made the medium difficult to master: fluidity of paint and permanence of each brush stroke. This artistic medium allowed Mason to improvise, both sketching and painting the final composition. Though his teacher and mentor Hill exemplified how to properly paint landscape, Mason's pursuit of watercolor painting steadily moved away from his own small controlled landscapes to larger, free-style abstractions. In the 1970s, Mason worked with

oil paint Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and varn ...

. He diluted his oils with Damar

varnish Varnish is a clear transparent hard protective coating or film. It is not a stain. It usually has a yellowish shade from the manufacturing process and materials used, but it may also be pigmented as desired, and is sold commercially in various ...

to create large paintings that translated the transparent, pooling nature of watercolor into large-scale color field paintings. This marked the beginning of his ''Burpee Garden Series'' which takes its name from the

Burpee Seeds Burpee Seeds and Plants, officially W. Atlee Burpee & Co., is an American Seed company, seed and plant company that was founded by Washington Atlee Burpee in Pennsylvania in 1876. History Early years (1876-1915) W. Atlee Burpee & Company was ...

catalog Mason knew from his youth. For Mason, there was a direct correlation between the way the colors of oil paints merged on the canvas and the germination of seeds and growth as they became plants. In 1973 Mason went to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

with his ''Burpee Garden Series'' at the invitation of his longtime friend and past student

. At this time Mason became acquainted with Alan Stone, an art dealer in New York who represented his work through the late 1970s. The Greg Kucera gallery later described these works, saying ... :"With their audacious color, surprising scale, and exuberant abstraction, they represent a break with the drably colored or poetic narratives that had typified painting here following the advent of the Northwest School… In the paintings titled the 'Burpee Garden' series Mason produced six by seven foot paintings in a color range not previously seen in the Northwest. Created from 1970 to 1976 this short period produced some of the most influential and groundbreaking works ever made in Seattle." Work on the scale of the ''Burpee'' paintings was not sustainable for the artist. Mason would often start a painting at 9 a.m. and work until at 2 a.m. the next morning to finish the piece. In addition to painting, Mason spent time on large drawings with oil stick and graphite on paper. With these he experimented, washing down his hard edged lines using turpentine. Round-the-clock painting stints left Mason exhausted physically and emotionally. Creating the ''Burpee'' series had adverse effects on Mason's health. Poor ventilation with hours spent breathing varnish fumes threatened Mason's lungs and nervous system. He reportedly collapsed on a regular basis and was advised by his doctors to stop using oil based pigments. In 1976 - 1977, Mason switched to less-toxic acrylics as the medium for his paintings. To develop his ideas, he spent time working on large paper pieces in search of his voice with this new medium. For works on paper from this period, Mason used a chopstick to drag acrylic paint across the surface and painted with thin, gestural washes on paper that was first painted black. The early acrylic works on canvas were done in a similar fashion to the oil ''Burpees''; Mason poured thin acrylic paint onto horizontally oriented, white-primed canvas in an effort to produce a similar effect.

Mid-career and influences, 1977 – 1990s

By the 1970s, Mason had abandoned white backgrounds and began painting black over the entire canvas or sheet of paper, before creating the imagery of his painting. This process enhanced the brilliant acrylic colors he was using. The artist began chopstick drawings on black grounds and followed with drawings of softer colors during the ''Squeeze Bottle'' period. Mason began testing with oil sticks and washed his marks with

turpentine Turpentine (which is also called spirit of turpentine, oil of turpentine, terebenthene, terebinthine and (colloquially) turps) is a fluid obtained by the distillation of resin harvested from living trees, mainly pines. Mainly used as a special ...

to smudge them to produce a filmy watercolor effect. While Mason devoted energy to producing drawings, he went to friend Robert Sperry's

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

studio and was given a squeeze bottle to decorate a pot for his mother. "We used this squeeze bottle thing…I liked it because it would go fast and would move with this energy... I gradually became more obsessed with it and more obsessed and then gradually covered the whole surface. So it changed from a drawing into a painting. The drawing part was there but it disappeared into this sort of all-over pattern, kind of textile-like look, I suppose…" By the mid-1980s, Mason was exclusively painting with squeeze bottles, where he combined drawing with paintings for the ''Squeeze Bottle'' series. At this time, his travels to

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

influenced the iconography of his images with either patch worked blocks of design like a mola, or overall patterns like Mexican rugs. They also incorporated figures from his drawings, animals or portraits of his friends and family. During the ''Squeeze Bottle'' period, Mason was commissioned by the

State of Washington Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...

to paint two murals for the Senate Chambers in

Olympia, Washington Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat and largest city of Thurston County. It is southwest of the state's most populous city, Seattle, and is a cultural center of the southern Puget Sound region. European ...

. Following the ''Squeeze Bottle'' series Mason created a series of ''Big Heads'' in the late 1980s. His depictions of large human heads were filled with walking fish, bugs, flowers, and birds; reflecting his interest in entomology and world travels to

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Mason said of this work "I find the interior of a human head, metaphysically speaking a fascinating subject."Updike, Robin (September 28, 1995).
Inside Alden Mason's Head
''Seattle Times''

Late-career 1990s – 2013

In the 1990s, Mason branched out from ''Big Heads'' and began to depict the full body, where his figures appear to dance. The sketchy black outline of each character gives the feeling that they are jiving to Mason's symphony of texture and color. Experimenting with acrylic paint application, Mason took the raised line of the ''Squeeze Bottle'' pieces, his drawings, ''Big Heads'', and a chop stick; and combined them resulting in a less precise line. Mason sketched with the chopstick on canvas, smudging the black or white line and adding splashes of vibrant color; he then filled in the backgrounds with a monochromatic palette on a scale averaging 60" x 50". Figure focused work occupied Mason during his later career. His studio was filled with "bird watching books, some tribal carvings from halfway around the globe, and a couple of framed carcasses of six inch long bugs." For Mason, each painting told a story of his travels friends, family, or of the lore of his home region the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

. The free-formed garish figures and spirit birds of Mason's earlier works made their transition to contemporary pieces; depicted in a new medium. His later artworks were composed on a foundation of watercolor in the style of ''Burpees.'' The watercolor was visible through an application of thick oil stick and India ink that formed windows in the shape of big heads. Mason's last work covered the entire paper with design. "Each new painting promises to better translate his observations into a painterly language…I am ontinuallyreminded that his lack of complacency keeps him vital." Mason died on February 6, 2013, in Seattle, Washington at the age of 93.

Travel

Mason was known to travel internationally to experience exotic flora and fauna. He stated that he was keen on the tropics "because there are hundreds of kinds of birds, beautiful tropical birds of all kinds from parrots to parakeets to toucans." Travels to South and Central America translated directly into his large ''Squeeze Bottle'' paintings of 1978–1980s. Stylized

South American South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

mola and brilliantly colored

Huichol The Huichol or Wixárika are an indigenous people of Mexico and the United States living in the Sierra Madre Occidental range in the states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Durango, as well as in the United States in the states of California, ...

Indian yarn paintings from

were later reinterpreted in paint. Roaming the earth to mostly indigenous cultures let Mason see elements of the world to record later in paintings as an extended, personal, travel journal. One of the most influential trips of Mason's career happened in 1989 when he took a trip to

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

to spend six weeks with the Huli tribe at the age of 70. There he heard stories from the tribesmen late into the night. A particular memory from this trip was of a spirit bird (which would forever be painted as a blackbird lingering in background) that called to the Hulis and told them to quit telling Mason tribal secrets. When traveling, Mason took an interest in bird watching and indigenous cultures, with his personal experiences impacting his art in both style and content. In the 1990s Mason created painting of spirit birds, body design, and the rhythm of tribal dances.Foster/White Gallery: Alden Mason. Foster/White Gallery. 2011. Foster/White Gallery.6/21/2011
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Collections and public works

Mason's paintings are held in the collections of the

Henry Art Gallery The Henry Art Gallery ("The Henry") is a contemporary art museum located on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington. Located on the west edge of the university's campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the University District, it wa ...

Tacoma Art Museum The Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) is an art museum in Tacoma, Washington, United States. It focuses primarily on the art and artists from the Pacific Northwest and broader western region of the U.S. Founded in 1935, the museum has strong roots in the c ...

Museum of Northwest Art The Museum of Northwest Art (also referred to as MoNA) is an art museum located in La Conner, Washington, and is focused on the Northwest School art movement, which had its peak in the mid-20th century. The Museum was founded by Art Hupy in 198 ...

, and many private and corporate collections in the US.

State of Washington murals

Mason was commissioned by the

to paint two murals for the

Washington Senate The Washington State Senate is the upper house of the Washington State Legislature. The body consists of 49 members, each representing a district with a population of nearly 160,000. The State Senate meets at the Legislative Building in Olympia. ...

Chambers in the state capitol of

Olympia The name Olympia may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Olympia'' (1938 film), by Leni Riefenstahl, documenting the Berlin-hosted Olympic Games * ''Olympia'' (1998 film), about a Mexican soap opera star who pursues a career as an athlet ...

. Painted in 1981, Mason's murals, described as "brightly colored mosaics depicting nature scenes" were 44 feet in length. The murals were designed to fill the

lunette A lunette (French ''lunette'', "little moon") is a half-moon shaped architectural space, variously filled with sculpture, painted, glazed, filled with recessed masonry, or void. A lunette may also be segmental, and the arch may be an arc take ...

s within the Senate Chamber. The state of Washington sought to remove or relocate Mason's murals from the Senate chamber in 1987, when the Senate was renovated. Commissioned during the same time period for the Washington State House chambers, murals from artist

Michael Spafford Michael Charles Spafford (November 6, 1935 – January 29, 2022) was an American artist known for his Archetype, archetypal, figurative oil paintings drawn from Classical mythology. Spafford taught painting at the University of Washington School ...

titled ''The Twelve Labors of Hercules'' were covered over within three months of being hung and threatened with removal, following calls for censorship from senators. While Mason's landscapes did not generate moral outrage, the interior decorator "insisted that the murals were inappropriate for the building because they clashed with the mauve-grey-color scheme." A Mural Defense Fund was formed and a legal battle ensued with the artist's lawyers arguing that the murals could not be relocated as they were site-specific works of art. The judge reluctantly voted in favor of the state. Mason's murals were removed and placed in storage in 1987. His works were eventually installed at

Centralia College Centralia College is a public community college in Centralia, Washington. Although it primarily offers certificates and Associate degrees, it also offers a few Bachelor's degrees. Founded in 1925, Centralia is the oldest continuously operatin ...

in the college library in the early 1990s.

Milestones and honors

Selected awards

*2005 Northwest Legacy: Visual Arts, Mayor's Arts Award, Seattle, WA *1992 WESTAF/NEA Regional Fellowship for Visual Artists for distinguished achievement in painting *1988 King County Honors Commission Award

Mayor's Art Award

In 2005 Mason received the Mayor's Arts Award from the City of

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

and Mayor

Greg Nickels Gregory J. Nickels (born August 7, 1955) is an American politician who served as the 51st mayor of Seattle, Washington. He took office on January 1, 2002 and was reelected to a second term in 2005. In August 2009, Nickels finished third in the p ...

. The award ceremony was held on September 2, 2005, and other recipients included David Brewster, Pat Wright, Peter Donnelly and Sara Liberty Laylin. Mason received the ''Northwest Legacy: Visual Arts'' award for his work as a Northwest painter. The honor was received for living in the region his whole life; going on to be educated and to teach at the University of Washington for over 30 years; and making his work in the City of Seattle for over 40 years."2005 Mayor's Art Award." SeattleChannel.com. City of Seattle, 2 September 2005. Web. 25 Jun. 2011.

Selected public commissions

*2005 6th Ave NW Pocket Park—entry columns and sidewalk pavers created in collaboration with Stephen McClelland *1988 ''Lunar Promenade'', 5' x 18',

Washington State Convention Center The Seattle Convention Center (SCC), formerly the Washington State Convention Center (WSCC), is a convention center in Seattle, Washington, United States. It consists of several exhibition halls and meeting rooms in buildings along Pike Stree ...

, Seattle, WA *1987 ''McGraw Hall Opera House'', Four Murals 4' x 13' each, Seattle, WA (formerly Seattle City Light Promenade) *1982 ''Yellow Birds'', 3' x 11.5', Renton District Court, Renton, WA **''Portland Rose'', 6' x 9', Portland Justice Center, Portland, OR **''Big Chief Seattle'', 5' x 24', Sheraton Hotel, Seattle, WA *1981 Two Murals in Washington State Senate Chambers, 12' x 44', Olympia, WA

References

External links

Alden Mason's documentary directed by John Forsen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason, Alden 1919 births 2013 deaths Artists from Seattle American contemporary painters People from Everett, Washington University of Washington alumni University of Washington faculty American muralists Painters from Washington (state)