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Paul Mason (artist)

Paul William Mason (1952 - 2006) was a British sculptor, born in [[Media:Bolton]], Lancs. In a generation of distinguished British sculptors, following on in the tradition of [[Media:Henry Moore]], Paul Mason stood out for his continuing adherence to the traditions of stone carving in a manner that Moore would have approved of, not only with regard to form, but also meaning and context.

Mason studied under John ‘Paddy’ Paddison at Wolverhampton and Willi Soukop in the [[Media:Royal Academy]] Schools. His keen insistence on traditions and craft was matched with a sense of enquiry and spirited adventure in new ways of carving to keep the medium fresh. An early break in his career came with a commission from Sir [[Media:Frederick Gibberd]] for a piece – ‘Hinge’, a 5ft piece in red sandstone, to be sited outdoors in Harlow New Town, where he first found himself in the company of major post war figures in the medium, and this founded a line of enquiry on which much of his reputation is based. Public commissions in Leeds, Nottingham, Southampton, Edinburgh, and, most notably, for Tudor Square in Sheffield followed, the latter, a complete scheme in which Mason was lead artist, a pattern of working to be copied widely in such projects across the UK.

In the mid eighties, Mason undertook a major solo exhibition entitled ‘The Cutting Edge’of sculpture and associated drawings, a second strand of activity that formed an important part of his output, and toured from his home town of Bolton to Wolverhampton and Lincoln. Exhibitions followed in a number of important venues including a period of residency at the [[Media:Tate St. Ives]] in 1996, where he was awarded a singular accolade, invited to utilise [[Media:Barbara Hepworth]]’s studio and carve a piece of stone from it, that formed a centrepiece in the resulting exhibition. In 2000 he undertook a year long residency in [[Media:Gloucester Cathedral]] where the carvings that resulted were extremely sensitive responses to the spirituality of the surroundings. At around the same time he exhibited drawings in the Bauhaus Archiv in Berlin and in some of these works, amongst his most experimental, can be found new ideas and approaches to his thinking about form and structure. His last solo exhibition ‘Stone Landscapes – a geometry of fracture’ took place in May 2005 at [[Media:The Quay Arts]], Newport, Isle of Wight and in his own notes Mason says “My works attempt to recognise and emulate the natural forces inherent in both carving and the geology. There is something deeply attractive and satisfying about the sculptural processes on both scales, and the dialogue between them that occurs quite naturally within the fragment and the whole”.

He taught at Loughborough College of Art, the [[Media:University of Staffordshire]] and [[Media:University of Northumbria]], and latterly at the [[Media:University of Derby]] where he was appointed Professor of Fine Art in 2004.

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