At the Bruce: works by scion of an artistic family
GREENWICH — The artist Emily Mason, whose work is now on display in a special exhibit at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, comes from a family with a rich artistic legacy.
Mason, who died last year, was born into a family of renowned artists stretching back to early American Republic painter John Trumbull as well as her mother, the acclaimed abstract painter Alice Trumbull Mason.
Her own artistic path spans a variety of art movements, including abstract expressionism and color field painting, and can be seen in the new exhibition “She Sweeps with Many-Colored Brooms.”
“Get the mind out of the way. ... let the painting speak,” is Mason’s famous phrase as she expressed her desire to be guided by intuition, allowing each stroke of paint or alteration of a printing plate to suggest the next move as she created a work of art, according to the Bruce Museum.
Mason carved out a nuanced artistic path of her own, moving among Europe, New York City and New England over her long career, according to the Bruce Museum.
“She Sweeps with ManyColored Brooms” takes its title from the opening line of a beloved poem by Emily Dickinson, one of her favorite writers and focuses on two intensely experimental bodies of work as she wrestled, in each case, to master a new medium.
Mason’s early paintings in oil on paper and early prints illuminate a lifetime devoted to creative spontaneity and richly demonstrate the subtle, complex, and beautiful aesthetic that was distinctly Mason’s own, according to the Bruce Museum.
It will be on exhibit through March 21 at the Bruce Museum. For more information, visit brucemuseum.org.