Alice Trumbull Mason
A Pioneer of Abstraction
Head-Image
In a Preface to the book on her mother published by Rizzoli Electa the week of March 16th, Emily Mason, daughter of Alice Trumbull Mason, wrote:
When I look back on my mother, I also remember someone who was resilient and driven by her principles. She was first and foremost an abstract painter — a pioneer of her time from pioneer stock. She was the only abstract painter on view at the Washington Square Art Show in 1935 amongst the 400 participants.
Thirteen paintings on view in the Washburn Gallery exhibition cover five decades from 1929 to 1969 and show how Mason gradually evolved from biomorphic abstraction in the 1930s to hard edge geometric work in the 1940s.
During the 1960s at an evening session of “The Club,” Alice was seen by Ad Reinhardt leaving early and he remarked:
Were it not for Alice Trumbull Mason, we would not be here nor in such strength.
Spring, 1931
Oil on canvas
20 x 26 inches
Sold
Untitled, c. 1939
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 inches
Sold
Colorstructive Abstraction, 1944
Oil on Masonite
28 x 20 inches
Price: $125,000 with drawing
Oil on Composition, 1942
Oil on composition board
21 3/4 x 27 5/8 inches
Collection of the Newark Museum of Art, 85.357, Gift of Jerry Leiber, 1985
L'Hasard, 1948-49
Oil on masonite
36 1/2 x 28 3/8 inches
Helen M. Danforth Acquisition Fund, 78.028, Courtesy RISD Museum, Providence, RI
White Appearing, 1942
Oil on masonite
12 x 16 7/8 inches
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Wolf Kahn, 1978, Collection of the Newark Museum of Art 78.198
