Watercolours by Frank Henry Mason, 19"x29", signed and dated 1900. The North Sea, or, rather the German Ocean as Mason would have known it when he painted this watercolour, is brought directly to us. The swell of the water and the way it rolls the trawler as it ploughs through it; the steam streaming behind, darker than the storm clouds; sea water lashed overboard pouring out again through the scuppers - how real this picture is. It is the work of a seaman, model ship builder and, above all, an artist who knows his subject so well and has sufficient skill to paint with true emotional flow.
View larger image

Watercolours, 13½"x17"signed and indistinctly dated (18)99 by Frank Henry Mason.
View larger image

Watercolours, 12½"x19½", signed and dated 1901 by Frank Henry Mason. SOLD
View larger image

Watercolours, 19½"x29½", signed and inscribed 'Venezia', painted around1902 when the Campanile of St Mark's collapsed. The re-built structure was opened in 1912. Mason embarked on a long European painting tour in 1902, during which he visited Venice. This is a large and important painting from his loose, Impressionist Staithes period.
View larger image

Oils on board, 13"x17", signed.'Verso: Exhibition label in Frank Mason's Hand 'Fondomento Nuovo, Venice, No.1, Frank H. Mason R.I., 3 Primrose Hill Studios, London, NW 1; Exhibition label - Lexington Art, 968 Lexington Ave, New York 21, N.Y., Rhinelander 4-0229; and written in another hand - 'Very old painting of Venice by Frank H. Mason R.A., London, England, sent to Helene 1961 after our trip to Venice 1960.'
This is a beautiful colourist picture, it's composition based on geometric shapes with strong verticals, horizontals and diagonals.
View larger image

Watercolours by Frank Henry Mason, 17½"x12½", signed.
Another typical Staithes period example.
View larger image

A Grey Morning, Venice, watercolours, 6¼"x19", signed and dated 1906 by Feank Mason. SOLD
View larger image

Etching, 14"x18", signed by Frank Mason.
View larger image

Etching, 7"x11½", signed by Frank Mason. Mason started exhibiting etchings in 1911. They make an excellent starting point for collecting his work.
View larger image

Etching, 9"x5½", signed by Frank Henry Mason. An unusual townscape by Mason. We will also be exhibiting an etching of Harrogate by him priced at £295.
View larger image

FRANK HENRY ALGERNON MASON RBA RI RSMA 1875 – 1965

Mason was born in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool. He began training for a naval career at the age of twelve aboard HMS Conway at Birkenhead. At the end of the two-year course he began training as a marine engineer, eventually settling in Scarborough.

He had long been interested in drawing and, although he had no formal training in art, he had ample opportunity to learn. Scarborough habour at that time was a favourite haunt for artists including Ernest Dade and Thomas Bush Hardy. In the late 1890s Mason’s work had progressed to the point where he was being given commissions by dealers and he felt able to become a full-time professional artist.

He made regular trips to Staithes to paint and to socialise with other artists there and became a founder member of the Staithes Art Club in 1901.

His work at this time was very free and atmospheric, almost exclusively in watercolours. Like many other artists in the Group at this time, aspects of his style were similar to those of Scottish watercolourists, especially the way he would build up parts of a picture using blobs of pure colour on damp paper. He would also often incorporate line into these pictures, especially when shipping was the subject. This adds an extra sense of focus to a basically impressionist work.

As Mason’s career progresses, he kept in touch with new movements in the art world and adapted his work accordingly. Poster work of the 1930s clearly shows the influence of the Art Deco movement. Generally speaking, his work becomes slicker with time, having almost a sense of formula to it. My mother always used to refer to the ultramarine which he was so fond of using as ‘Mason blue.’ Whilst much of this later work can be very fine, and the best shows a strong colourist influence, it is his early impressionist watercolours which appeal most to me. It is very 'Staithes' in style, unlike his later work.

Mason was elected a Member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1904 and a Member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours in 1929. Appointed an official war artist during the First World War, there are examples of his work in the Imperial War Museum. It also hangs in public galleries in Bradford, Dundee, Hartlepool and Whitby. He exhibited at Agnew and Sons, the Alpine Club Gallery, Royal Society of Artists Birmingham, the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, the Walker Gallery Liverpool, Manchester City Art Gallery, the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Royal
Institute of Oil Painters

Bibliography:
Staithes Group Centenary Exhibition, Rosamund Jordan 2003
The Life and Career of Frank Henry Mason, Edward Yardley, Hartlepool Museum Services The Artists of Northumbria, Marshall Hall, 2nd Edition, Titus Wilson & son Ltd., Kendal,
1982.
The Staithes Group, Peter Phillips, Phillips and Sons, Marlow1993
The Yorkshire Union of Artists 1888 – 1922, Dennis Child, Leeds Philosophical and
Literary Society Ltd, Leeds 2001
The Dictionary of British Artists 1880 – 1940, J. Johnson & A. Greutzner, Antique
Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge 1976
© Rosamund Jordan 2005 (Please contact me before quoting from the above information publically, and credit myself and this website)