'St Mark's Place, East Village, New York City', Raymond Mason

Artwork details

Artist

Raymond Mason (1922‑2010)

Title

St Mark's Place, East Village, New York City

Date 1972

MediumAcrylic paint, epoxy resin and box

Dimensionsobject: 686 x 1249 x 495 mm, 33.2 kg

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Presented by Mme Andrée Stassart 1983

Reference

T03797

Not on display

Display caption

Mason has lived and worked in France for fifty years, but his central concerns, with narrative, close observation and the rich diversity of humanity, are in the tradition of the eighteenth-century painter Hogarth, whose vivid evocations of contemporary life helped create the foundations of a native English school of art. Birmingham-born, Mason has recalled how he 'spent a sickly childhood looking through curtains at a brick-lined street'. In 1971, finding himself in a Manhattan coffee shop, his 'heart...warmed by the sight of the brick fronts opposite', he drew the view through the window as 'an extravagant populace trouped the sidewalks in sharp noon sunlight… (read more)

August 2004