George Hemming Mason was an English painter. He created landscapes depicting pastoral scenes of Italy and the United Kingdom.
Background
George Hemming Mason was born on March 11, 1818, in Stoke-on-Trent city, Staffordshire, United Kingdom. He was the eldest son of George Miles Mason, a landowner who had graduated from Brasenose College, Oxford, fascinated by literature and painting, and Eliza Heming, a daughter of Major Heming of Mapleton, Derbyshire.
George’s paternal grandfather named Miles Mason worked as a potter, as George’s uncle Charles James Mason did. The latter was known as an inventor of Mason's iron-stone china.
A youngster, George Mason was passionate about literature, athletics and painting too.
When George was fourteen, the Masons relocated to Wetley Abbey.
Education
George Mason received his primary education at Anderton school in Newcastle-under-Lyme town of the United Kingdom. Then, the boy had been schooled at home for some time, and after pursued his studies at the King Edward's School in Birmingham.
Since 1834 George was taught surgeon profession by William Royden Watts while attending the painting course of James John Hill, a portraitist. Soon, in 1844, Mason finally left his training in medicine to become a painter.
Career
In order to begin his artistic career, George Hemming Mason along with his brother Miles started a trip through France, Switzerland, and Italy in 1843. After two years, the brothers settled down in Rome where George established a studio. To earn his living, young Mason portrayed the English citizens in Rome often with their horses and dogs.
During the Italian war which began in 1848, George Mason helped to take care of injured people.
In 1851, George travelled to an Italian town Campagna where he produced a great number of landscapes including A Fountain with Figures, In the Salt Marshes and Ploughing in the Campagna. The latter was demonstrated at the Royal Academy in 1857.
While in Italy, Mason met an architect and painter Frederic Leighton, and a landscapist Giovanni Costa who became his friends. Mason and Costa followed a panting technic called by themselves "the Etruscan". They created their pictures in monochrome palette firstly and then added to the final colours.
In 1858, George Mason returned to his motherland with his wife Mary Emma Wood. The couple settled down in Wetley Abbey where the artist created such masterpieces as Wind on the Wold, The End of the Day, Wetley Rocks (1863). Six years later, Mason relocated to Hammersmith where appeared such paintings as At Shaftesbury Road, The Gander, The Geese, The Cast Shoe, Yarrow, The Young Anglers, The Unwilling Playmate and The Evening Hymn. Some of these creations were presented at the Royal Academy in different years, in particular, in 1859, 1861-1864, 1866-1868, and in 1871-1872.
George Hemming Mason also exhibited at the Dudley Gallery and at the Cosmopolitan Club during his career.
George Hemming Mason married Mary Emma Wood on August 5, 1858. His wife's father was Edward Gittens Wood. The couple settled down in Wetley Abbey and had in total seven children – two sons and five daughters. Five of the children survived the artist.