root & cause

 "One of the pleasures for me during the last year has been to visit Paul and to trace the evolution of his engagement with the Cathedral through the drawings and models, the bits of writing and the stacks of books that have gradually accumulated around his studio at Three Cocks Lane.

Norman Chatfield
Residentiary Canon

"He has used the opportunity of the Residency to immerse himself in the life of this great mediaeval cathedral, its past as well as its present.  His close, almost daily contact with the fabric of the cathedral has deepened an already incipient interest in mediaeval art and architecture as a reflection of mediaeval thought.

Professor Peter Wheeler

quotations from Root and Cause, published by Sarah Myerscough Fine Art

Starleaf

 

Commissioned by Nene College, Northampton, 1992

Starleaf is one of a number of smaller public commissions Paul received throughout his career.  This work rehearses several ongoing themes and deploys carved and polished faces typical of works made at that time.

The Beeston 'Stump'

 

Water-Head, Beeston, 2025

I've written before about the difficulties faced by artists making 'public sculpture'. With a substantial number of commissions Paul Mason was all too familiar with both the processes and controversies surrounding the installation of works.  None more so than the above 'Water-Head' commissioned by Nottinghamshire in 1988.  Right from the start there were substantial issues around the piece and its original location in this satellite of Nottingham.  In the first instance, like Leaf Stem in the city centre, it was envisaged as having a fountain through its core that would see water cascading gently over its surface.

Original location - photo credit: Akhtar Khan/Art UK

And like the work in the City Centre, that was decommissioned in the early 90's as UK winds whipped the water off the surface and onto passers by adding a physical dimension to viewers aesthetic displeasure!  However despite it all the work remained in place for quite a time but redevelopment saw its future very uncertain.  Step forward Tamar Feast, a local resident and (since 2018) Trustee of Beeston & District Civic Society).  Tamar first contacted me in 2012 when she wrote in The Beestonian newspaper a passionate defence of the work outlining its history and kickstarted a campaign to have it re-sited rather than thrown on the scrapheap.  

So all credit, to Tamar, first & foremost, abetted by fellow trustees, local government officials and members for the re siting of the work adjacent to the Hoton - City Centre Tram line that now sees Paul's work at two locations (the other being a black marble work outside Lakeside Arts Centre by the University of Nottingham campus).  As I write this I'm getting set to go to a re-dedication of the piece this very day!  And here we are...on Saturday 25th January at 3.30 pm.  Introduced by (on left) Mervyn Brown, Hon. Sec & Trustee of the Beeston & District Civic Society, myself (centre) and Tamar Feast (on right).

 

Untitled & Undated Drawing

I have quite a few drawings that are both untitled and undated. And though I knew his work better than most I cannot be sure exactly when this piece was made. However I suspect it is from the early period after Paul had completed his studies at the Royal Academy in the 1970's or early 80's. It measures 47.5 x 66 cms. Although stylistically from this period some of the forms look forward to works made a decade or two later, particularly the sphere that was revisited in the piece made on his Gloucester Cathedral residency - Puffball and for his Seaham & Isle of Wight commissions.

Puffball, marble, lead inserts, 30 cm. diameter, 2000

excerpt from leaflet 'Six Sculptures along the river Yar' 2002

Leaf Stem

In the mid 1980's Mason was one of a small group of locally based artists chosen to create public artworks for an initiative jointly stimulated by Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire County councils.  With support from East Midlands Arts, through advice from the Visual Arts Officer David Manley, City Technical Services Director John Haslam selected a number of proposals for consideration.  Paul Mason had produced a small maquette in marble for a large work that he envisaged in the same material that would take the form of a fountain. 

Original maquette

This was chosen (alongside pieces by Richard Perry & Hilary Cartmel) to be in the vanguard of an ambitious scheme of re-envisaging the city (to include better street furniture, plantings and surfaces) along the lines of other Continental cities that Haslam had seen on recent excursions to Germany and elsewhere.  For Mason it required a deal of research and the eventual contracting of an Italian marble quarry to supply the stone.  As importantly it further stimulated an interest in Italy and particularly in the marble quarries and the Apuan Alps region of northern Tuscany.  

Following initial visits the artist dispatched the maquette to the workshop in Italy where a phone call suggested the masons there "might rough the stone out" following the form from the piece sent through to them.  The artist was therefore surprised to arrive in Italy to find the piece very nearly completed!  The photo above shows the stone when the artist arrived in the yard...and the one below as sited in Nottingham.  Mason recalled that the workers in the yard told the story of Henry Moore similarly finding a piece virtually completed.  On that occasion the press were invited and with a photo of the 'maestro' about to be taken of him 'finishing' the piece with chisel in hand...the master carver of the yard stepped forward advising that he was holding it at the wrong angle!  Anyone who has visited Carrara, Massa or Pietrasanta and seen some of the exotic pieces carved from this material will see just how complex some of the work can be. 

marble Fiat!

The sited work has been controversial from the beginning.  Like the Beeston piece Water Head, it has been much discussed.  My contribution to this can be found here, in an interview with Tamar Feast.

At Auction

It is rare that a PWM work comes up at auction.  Rarer still outside of the Capital.  But here we have Shifting Ground, a collage from 1985, 23.5 x 63 cm.  It was one of the works in The Cutting Edge, the large, one person exhibition that opened at Bolton Museum & Art Gallery in 1987 and touring to Wolverhampton and Lincoln. It is related to the series of low bas-reliefs  in marble produced in the early nineteen eighties, several of which found their way into public collections.  This piece is featured in the auction of Modern & Contemporary Art at Tennants in Leyburn, North Yorkshire in six days time (10:30 am., 20th October, 2018).

Vertex

Commisioned in 1979 Vertex is the first of the artist's many public works.  Sited in the centre of Harlow New Town on the Broad Walk the piece is in remarkably good condition as seen on the day of my visit (July 2017).  This is in no small part to the choice of a dove grey bardolino marble sourced from Carrara. 

Absent Friend

Leaf Fields

Leaf Fields, 1985

In a published interview at the time of the exhibition The Cutting Edge curator Rebecca Morris asks the artist Paul Mason  “do you think you have an important role to play in making works for public places”?

“Yes, very much so. There was a time when sculptors worked with planners and architects as a matter of course.  Recently though, there has been a resurgence of interest in putting works out-of-doors and in public places, which has been very exciting.  It is much more interesting to go into a place where there is sculpture as long as certain formal criteria have been considered such as the scale of the work, its texture, colour, how it relates to the surrounding space, etc.  These are qualities that sculptors are dealing with all the time.  I think the work of sculptors can encourage movement in and around and though a site, so rather than people rushing through a space and not pausing, a sculpture can slow them down, make them pause for thought and hopefully also enhance their lives.”

The passage of time and the seemingly endless disturbances in many urban environments nowadays can play havoc with the siting, condition and context of contemporary sculpture.  Taken together with the medium’s capacity (still) to stir up controversy these conditions often impact adversely on work made for public sites.  Mason’s work is no stranger to such events.  Indeed several public commissions, all less than forty years old, have been either re-sited or, worse still, destroyed in the recent past.  However, from time to time, some have been rescued from relative neglect and either restored or re-sited through the sensitivity and determination of supporters. 

Cllr. Frances Leonard, Mayor of St. Albans, with (to her right), Chris McIntyre, University of Hertfordshire

On 9th May 2017 one such - Leaf Fields - was rededicated in St. Albans through the combined efforts of initial commissioners and supporters, current public officials and determined lobbying from the Dean of Cultural Affairs and Director of University of Hertfordshire Arts Chris McIntyre.  Sandy Walkington, one of the original commissioning group spoke to the controversy that attended the selection of the work at its initiation - through financial support from the Hertfordshire Association of Architects (the local branch of the Royal Institute of British Architects) and told of the circumstances of its siting in St. Albans - allegedly the first such work in the city.

The passage of time makes its mark on the work too of course. Especially so with a material like Clipsham limestone.  Mason was at pains to carve pieces to sit against the grain of the material so that a degree of protection is afforded to those surfaces that have not been polished.  But such open surfaces as those where the evidence of the plug & feather marks remains are especially vulnerable to colouration and colonisation by lichens.  In Leaf Fields these are visible on the undersides of the ‘prow’ of the piece as it is positioned in the raised bed.  Whether or not the piece would benefit from significant restitution is debatable though some delicate removal of the organic material would reveal and restore the artist's intentions for the work.

Tarn Hows

This is a pastel drawing from 1986 on a sheet of T. H. Saunders 190gsm watercolour paper (56 x 76 cm.).  It was exhibited in 'The Cutting Edge' exhibition at Bolton Museum & Art Gallery (that subsequently toured to Wolverhampton and Lincoln) and is in a private collection.  Tarn Hows is a small tarn (mountain lake or pool) not far from Hawkshead, the centre for Grizedale Forest and its arts project.  Paul undertook a short residency there in 1981 and the resulting works were made and exhibited in the forest for some years (the extract below from A Sense Of Place - Sculpture in Landscape, Ceolfrith Press No. 73, 1984 shows them in situ).  In his commentary Paul talks of revisiting Grizedale over successive autumns following his residency with students from Loughborough College of Art where he taught on the BA (Hons) programme.  The drawing above is the fruit of one such expedition. 

In A Sense Of Place Paul remarks "It is difficult to assess what changes [in his practice] are due to Grizedale Forest. I have visited it each autumn for several days with students, discovering new sculptures and different parts of the Forest. Re-orientating past and current perceptions each visit.  The sharply contrasting pace of life and environs leaves an endless series of images and spaces."

Courtyard

Courtyard, marble, 21 x 26.5 x 2.5 cm., dates from 1985 and was commissioned by Harlow Council.  It sits in the Gibberd Gallery within the Civic Centre.  The Essex town also houses Vertex, Mason's first commissioned public work and his first major work Hinge purchased by Sir Frederick Gibberd.  It was chosen to celebrate Alan Mead's service to the town as its Treasurer.  Sir Frederick Gibberd, the town's Master Planner, stimulated the collection and placing of works of contemporary art throughout the town.

Piece for Lakeside

This is a piece made for, and recently re-installed, at the Lakeside Arts Centre at Nottingham University following the extensive tram developments.  Its an elegant work in black marble and dates from the period following the artist's relocation from Cheltenham to London following the residency at Gloucester Cathedral.  When originally sited next to the small pond at the city side of the Centre the sympathetic mature shrubbery around it shielded it from the busy dual carriageway.  At present it is a little more exposed, however the replanting should take care of this as it develops and the work benefits from good views from the passing tram.

Ideally the piece might also benefit from re-gilding though given the age of the work it has stood up to the elements quite well.

Tarpey Sculpture Garden

Three pieces of Paul's marble sculptures are going on display in the newly created Sculpture Garden at Leicestershire's Tarpey Galleryhttp://tarpeygallery.com. The opening of the garden takes place on Saturday 11th July, 2015 from 2 to 6pm.  One is from the period of his residency at the Tate St. Ives and two more from the early 2000's in preparation for the exhibition at Quay Arts on the Isle of Wight in 2005.

Pages

These five pieces are each entitled 'Pages' and are marble reliefs with lead inserts, each measuring 255 mm by 178 mm.

Hinge

Hinge is a piece sited in the Gibberd Garden in Harlow, Essex - established by Sir Frederick Gibberd and continued after his death by his wife Lady Patricia.  She, in particular, maintained a relationship with the artist and collected additional pieces alongside those her husband had purchased.  Hinge is the largest work in their collection.  Carved from Locharbriggs sandstone it measures 60 x 60 x 38 inches.

Area, Collage & Graphite, 70 x100 (framed), 1997

Made at a time when the artist was exploring new directions in his work, Area uses the grid form - that previously made an appearance in the early bas-relief marbles.  It presages the works that formed the basis of the exhibition 'Division As Structure' that took place at the Bauhaus Archiv in Berlin in 2001.  In this work extensive scratching on the surface creates the image and the use of graphite as a wash is introduced.

Adrift

Another low bas-relief work from the 1980's. Adrift continues the tradition of utilising found marks and formal tropes occasioned by the use of found pieces of marble.

All At Sea

This piece was exhibited in the exhibition 'The Cutting Edge' - Sculpture 1977 - 87 that opened in Bolton Museum & Art Gallery on 11th April 1987 and subsequently toured to the Usher Gallery, Lincoln and Wolverhampton Art Gallery. It is in the collection of Lady Patricia Gibberd, an early supporter of Mason's work following the commission by her husband , Sir Frederick Gibberd, for Harlow New Town.

The piece utilises a fragment of Carrara Marble, a frequent decision to exploit the naturally occurring shape of the material within which a dynamic formal construction emerges. Like many works from this period the forms are in part determined by the internal relationships between them with just the suggestion of externally arrived at characteristics. This ambiguity of form and subsequent meaning is often found in much of work of the artist. Equally evident is the delight in the interplay between the surface finishes, the rough chisel marked with that of the flat polished. It is also an early example of the occasional introduction of other material, paint and lead, that crops up sporadically in work over the years. The sculpture is approximately 14" high.

Drawings

Paul Mason was a prolific draughtsman - not for the sculptures themselves (such drawings are few and infrequent other than occasionally for public art works) but more as a practice in its own right. In the 00's this practice took on a major role with a great deal of resulting work, some on a relatively large scale. Indeed the number and variety of works is such that identifying them all as regards titles and/or dates is difficult.

This is one such work - it measures 99 x 68.5 cms and is drawn in charcoal. It deploys frottage to convey part of the surface texture and uses a wild and relatively uncontrolled range of marks to suggest a whirling vortex. The imagery is such that it might date from the period 2000 to 2001 when Mason was Artist In Residence at Gloucester Cathedral - it bears resemblance to the sculpture Root.

Harbour, 1983 is a small landscape based relief, some 7" in height. In the essay of the catalogue for the exhibition 'The Cutting Edge' (Bolton Museum & Gallery and touring, 1987) Peter Wheeler said

(it) is a small and spontaneous looking piece. Its size and apparent rapidity of execution contradict conventional notions of carved sculpture as difficult and long-winded. For Mason, working against inherited ideas either of technique or purpose and expectations of stone, is a way of remaining alive to its potential, and extending its language.