Fly Your Own Thing

1968

American, 1919 - 2013

While a professor at the University of Washington (1949-81), Mason taught a young budding artist, Chuck Close, and formed a friendship that continues today. Mason recalls that Close, a 1962 graduate, was invited back in the late 1960s as a visiting artist. While there, Close offered Mason the use of his airbrush, a device originally designed to retouch photographs, but nevertheless a suitable tool for painters to experiment with in their work. In Fly Your Own Things, Mason used pencil, oil crayons and the airbrush to articulate the playful and wildly fantastical forms.

Air-brushed pigments, pencil, and oil crayon on paper, board-mounted

23 13/16 x 28 3/4 in. (60.5 x 73 cm)

Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection

68.199

Provenance: The artist; purchased by the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, Oct. 1968

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum Pavilion, 54th Annual Exhibition of Northwest Artists, Oct. 1968. Cat. no. 58, reproduced.

Anchorage, Alaska, Anchorage Historical and Fine Arts Museum, Northwest Paintings, Drawings and Prints, 1972.

Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Art of the Pacific Northwest from the 1930s to the Present, Feb. 8 - May 5, 1974 (Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, July 12 - Aug. 25, 1974; Portland, Oregon, Portland Art Museum, Sept. 17 - Oct. 13, 1974]. Cat. no. 71, reproduced.

Seattle, Washington, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Alden Mason: A Selective Survey, Oct. 13 - Dec. 6, 1987. Text by Chris Bruce and Regina Hackett. Cat. no. 6.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Alden Mason, Nov. 6, 2010 - July 17, 2011.

Bellevue, Washington, Bellevue Arts Museum, Alden Mason: Fly Your Own Thing, May 14 - Oct. 10, 2021.

Published ReferencesHull, Roger, et al. Alden Mason Paintings. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2021; p. 31, reproduced fig. 1.13.

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