Joseph Mason (artist)
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Joseph Mason (1808 – October 8, 1842) was an American artist who worked as an assistant to
John James Audubon John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin, April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a French-American Autodidacticism, self-trained artist, natural history, naturalist, and ornithology, ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornitho ...
, painting uncredited plant-life backgrounds for some 50 of his bird studies for the book ''
The Birds of America ''The Birds of America'' is a book by naturalist and painter John James Audubon, containing illustrations of a wide variety of birds of the United States. It was first published as a series in sections between 1827 and 1838, in Edinburgh and L ...
''.


Early life

Joseph Mason, who is listed in some sources as Joseph R. Mason, was born in
Delaware, Ohio Delaware is a city in Delaware County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is located near the center of Ohio, about north of Columbus as part of the Columbus metropolitan area. The population was 41,302 at the 2020 census. Delaware ...
, the son of Joseph Wilson Mason (a bookseller), and later moved to
Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
.


Career


Tutelage under Audubon

When Audubon came to Cincinnati for a short time in 1820, Mason became his pupil, showing exceptional talent, especially as a draftsperson. Audubon later wrote in a letter to his wife that Mason had a "fine" talent for painting and "''draws flowers'' better than any man probably in America, thou knowest I do not flatter young artists much, I never said this to him, but I think so". Audubon hired Mason as his assistant to paint the floral backgrounds of his bird pictures as they traveled south down the
Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
and
Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...
rivers to New Orleans. A good shot, Mason also undertook other expedition duties, shooting many specimen birds as well as rowing the boat and ferrying supplies.


Traveling with Audubon

During the two years he traveled with Audubon (October 1820 to August 1822), Mason painted, by his own reckoning, between 150 and 200 background watercolors for Audubon. Over 50 of these were used, uncredited, in Audubon's book of 450 bird paintings. For example, for Audubon's study of two blue yellow-backed warblers (now known as
northern parula The northern parula (''Setophaga americana'') is a small New World warbler. It is migratory and breeds in eastern North America from southern Canada to Florida. Taxonomy The northern parula was Species description, formally described in 1758 by ...
birds; plate 15 of ''Birds of America''), Mason painted an image of '' Iris fulva'', the copper iris, which Audubon called Louisiana flag. Similarly, plate 73 shows Mason's painting of a branch of ''
Magnolia grandiflora ''Magnolia grandiflora'', commonly known as the southern magnolia or bull bay, is a tree of the family Magnoliaceae native to the Southeastern United States, from Virginia to central Florida, and west to East Texas. Reaching in height, it is a ...
'' (southern magnolia, called by Audubon great magnolia) on which is perched a
Canada warbler The Canada warbler (''Cardellina canadensis'') is a small boreal songbird of the New World warbler family (Parulidae). It summers in Canada and northeastern United States and winters in northern South America. Taxonomy In 1760 the French zoolog ...
(called by Audubon Bonaparte's flycatching warbler). A former curator of the
National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...
considers that Mason's backgrounds significantly contribute to the scientific worth of Audubon's project because of how they help to establish scale, proportion, and environment.


Uncredited work

It appears that Audubon may not have intended to give Mason credit for his work, as he had Mason sign his name in pencil while he signed his own name to the finished works in ink. By the mid 1830s, Mason was unhappy with how Audubon had treated him, and in 1834 he wrote of Audubon in a letter to the author and critic
John Neal John Neal (August 25, 1793 – June 20, 1876) was an American writer, critic, editor, lecturer, and activist. Considered both eccentric and influential, he delivered speeches and published essays, novels, poems, and short stories between the 1 ...
: : I looked on him as my greatest friend; and it never once entered my mind that he would do me injustice when he came to publish his work. This it appears he has done. Neal would go on to express serious reservations about Audubon's honesty and trustworthiness in several 1835 issues of ''The New England Galaxy'', of which he was then senior editor. Among other things, he alleges that Audubon had promised Mason that his name would be on the relevant plates of ''The Birds of America''.


Later life

Mason returned to Cincinnati in 1822 to assist his mother, who was then newly widowed. Mason lived in Cincinnati for the remainder of his life except for a couple of years in Philadelphia (1829–32) and short trips to Michigan (1840–41) and Indiana (1841). He established himself as a private art teacher and portrait painter; this later work is rather wooden compared to his botanical paintings.


Death and legacy

He died of
pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...
on October 8, 1842. In the early 2000s, wildlife artist John Ruthven became interested in Mason's life and determined to track down his grave, the location of which was then unknown. Ruthven discovered that Mason had originally been buried in a downtown cemetery and was later moved to
Spring Grove Cemetery Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum is a nonprofit rural cemetery and arboretum located at 4521 Spring Grove Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio. At a size of 733 acres (2.97 km2), it is the third largest cemetery in the United States, after the Calverto ...
and Arboretum. Ruthven joined forces with other Cincinnati civic leaders to create a bronze relief marker memorializing Mason's contribution to the monumental ''Birds of America''; it was dedicated in 2013.


Note


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason, Joseph 1808 births 1842 deaths American botanical illustrators Artists from Ohio Deaths from pneumonia in Ohio 19th-century American male artists