Alice Mason (1904-1971) was an American abstract painter. She studied art in Rome, attending the British Academy in 1923. She settled in New York by 1927 and was influenced by early abstract artist Arshile Gorky. She also studied with Charles Webster Hawthorne at the National Academy of Design in New York where she befriended artists Esphyr Slobodkina and Ilya Bolotowsky. While her earlier works were biomorphic or pure abstraction, her knowledge of Byzantine architecture later infused her compositions with an architectural dimension. She continued her studies at the Grand Central Art Galleries until 1931. She later wrote that she became devoted to abstraction in 1929. Alice Trumbull Mason took up poetry and corresponded with Gertrude Stein before resuming her painting in 1934. She first exhibited her work in New York in 1942. Her works received little recognition while she was alive. After the death of her son in 1958, she struggled with depression and alcoholism. She painted her last work in 1969 and died in New York City in 1971. Two years later the Whitney Museum of American Art hosted a retrospective exhibition of her works.
Portrait Courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute
