‘A feisty memoir’ – The Financial Times Magazine

In 1946, with the war in Europe at last at a close, the young English Artist Raymond Mason packed his bags for Paris, the then undisputed artistic capital of the world. There he found himself thrust into the company of some of the greatest figures of twentieth-century art, from Balthus and Duchamp to Giacometti and Picasso, and, inspired by their example, set about making his own distinctive contribution to modern sculpture.

In this memoir Mason vividly conjures up the golden age of the Parisian art world. The cultural impresarios Jean Cocteau and André Malraux, and dealers Claude Bernard, Aimé Maeght and Pierre Matisse, and the interactions of visiting English artists Henry Moore and Francis Bacon with the 'locals' – all these figure in Mason's entertaining account as he pays a by no means uncritical tribute to the masters of European modernism.

By turns humorous and passionate, Mason also reflects on a variety of other matters, from Parisian architecture to the development of his own work and that of artists from Hogarth to Rodin. These passages – an articulate artist writing about art – are a wonderfully enjoyable part of this thoroughly spirited volume.

Raymond Mason's sculpture enjoys universal popularity as evidenced by record-breaking attendances for his major retrospectives at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Serpentine Gallery in London.

Also of interest
Raymond Mason
Interviews with Francis Bacon
The Harlequin Years: Music in Paris 1917–1929