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Fly Your Own Thing
Fly Your Own Thing

Fly Your Own Thing

Date1968
Maker Alden Mason American, 1919 - 2013
Label TextWhile 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.
Object number68.199
ProvenanceThe artist; purchased by the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, Oct. 1968
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.
Credit LineEugene Fuller Memorial Collection
Dimensions23 13/16 x 28 3/4 in. (60.5 x 73 cm)
MediumAir-brushed pigments, pencil, and oil crayon on paper, board-mounted
Photo: Susan Cole
Alden Mason
1972
Object number: 83.167
Violet Flapper
Alden Mason
1975
Object number: 75.80
Spook
Alden Mason
ca. 1964
Object number: 64.152
Deception Cove
Alden Mason
1952
Object number: 52.148
Moraine
Alden Mason
1959
Object number: 59.163
Winter
Alden Mason
1948
Object number: 59.71
Mother
Alden Mason
1985
Object number: 86.101
Parade
Alden Mason
1966
Object number: 67.44
Billy
Alden Mason
1986
Object number: 2002.45
Alden Mason
1979
Object number: 2010.31.11
Darrington Rain
Alden Mason
1947
Object number: 47.139