William Wallace Collett Mason
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- United Kingdom, India
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Biography
William Collett-Mason was educated at Eton, and from Sandhurst entered the Eighth Hussars.
During the 1920s he was living and working in Kashmir, the Punjab and Balochistan where he was based in Quetta, the capital. He made many evocative drawings of the local people in strong pencil and black chalk, including members of the Bolochistan police force, soldiers and people of varying occupations. The carefully observed drawings of Subharas Khan suggest a degree of intimacy with the sitter.
In 1920s, Balochistan was inhabited by several tribes and peoples including the Balochi, the Brahui and the Pashtun.
At some point in 1920s Collett-Mason returned to England and in 1929 he sailed from Liverpool to New York on the ‘Samaria’, his profession listed as an artist. By 1939 he had returned to England and was living at 32 De Vere Gardens, London, the census listing him as a traveller. During World War Two he was a Pilot Officer before being promoted on 7th March 1942 to Flying Officer. By 1951 he was living at 23a Prince of Wales Terrace, London before finally moving to Tunbridge Wells.
The artist regularly exhibited at The Pastel Society with pastels of sitters including the Duchess of Atholl and Sir Ernest Wills. He also exhibited at the Paris Salon at the Grand Palais in 1924 and The 34th Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Burlington House, London, 19 January 1924 – 9 February 1924. The present rather intimate drawings are similar in style, scale and quality to the works he exhibited that year.
