Billy

Date1986

Maker Alden Mason American, 1919 - 2013

Label TextAs a teenager, Mason sent away for a mail order drawing course that taught him how to draw cartoon figures. This was his first introduction to developing his technical skills at "making" art, specifically in understanding how to handle the drawn line. In Billy, we see hints of the artist's interest in the humorous and absurd as well as in subjects painted as cartoonish characters. As Mason's practice developed, he began to blur traditional compositional boundaries-as in this portrait-between abstraction and figuration. Here, he creates an image whereby the figure, whose form pulsates in and out of a "landscape" of fanciful forms and ambiguous space, dissolves into the picture plane.

Object number2002.45

Provenance[Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, CA]; purchased by the Persis Corporation, Honolulu, HI, 1987; gifted to the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, August 8, 2002

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Freeing the Figure, Nov. 5, 2009 - Nov. 28, 2010. 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. 133, reproduced.

Credit LineGift of The Persis Corporation

Dimensions61 x 51 in. (154.9 x 129.5 cm)

MediumAcrylic on canvas