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).

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."

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.

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.