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Trailblazing Women in American Abstraction: Alice Trumbull Mason

Two small black-and-white images from the mid- 1940s next to each other of a light-skinned woman with glasses in front of an abstract painting. In the first, her profile is in view, and in the second, she is looking directly at the camera.
Alice Trumbull Mason in front of her painting, “Purple Median,” ca. mid-1940s © 2025 Emily Mason | Alice Trumbull Mason Foundation/ARS.

As Ilya Bolotowsky said, “Alice started too early.”

Alice Trumbull Mason was a pioneer on many fronts; not only with abstract painting, but through her unyielding drive to live the life she wanted. Determined, independent, and expressive from a young age, Mason chose a path which pushed against the gender norms of her time. In closing out Women’s History Month, we’re taking a look at Trumbull Mason’s invaluable contributions to abstract art in the United States.

Black and white photograph from 1943, capturing the side profile of a woman with pale skin, wearing glasses, posed in front of an abstract painting
Portrait of Alice Trumbull Mason in front of her painting “Yellow Ochre Ground,” 1943 © 2025 Emily Mason | Alice Trumbull Mason Foundation/ARS.

Seen as outliers in the art world, the American Abstract Artists were formed in 1936 to advocate for American abstraction and its visibility and inclusion in museums.  In an interview with Ruth Gurin in 1969, Trumbull Mason recounted their protest at MoMA in 1940: 

“When we first began forming the American Abstract Artists we said, ‘what is the Museum of Modern Art anyway if it isn’t for abstract artists?’” And we picketed them!”

Many women were involved in the forming and operations of the AAA; Alice Trumbull Mason was a founding member, as well as her friend, the artist Esphyr Slobodkina.

An abstract work on paper consisting of black lines of varying thickness, and the signature "Alice Trumbull Mason" on the bottom right of the page.
Alice Trumbull Mason, “Untitled (From American Abstract Artists Portfolio), 1936-1937, offset lithograph © 2025 Emily Mason | Alice Trumbull Mason Foundation/ARS.

Trumbull Mason continued to advocate passionately throughout her entire career for spaces which fostered artistic community. In 1945, Mason joined Atelier 17, located at 41 East Eighth Street. Established in the 1920s, artist Stanley William Hayter relocated the studio from Paris to NYC in 1940 due to WWII.

Atelier 17 was well-known among artists in the avant-garde New York art scene, attracting the likes of Anne Ryan, Louise Bourgeois, and Miriam Schapiro. Members of the workshop learned a myriad of printmaking techniques including soft ground etching, engraving, and aquatint, and provided space in which artists could learn, experiment, and exchange ideas in printmaking; particularly, among women.

Abstract grey-toned etching of two slanted rectangular forms, with smaller white rectangular forms in their centers. Net-like texture is punctuated throughout the composition.
Alice Trumbull Mason, “March Time” (ed. 7 of 25), 1950, etching with aquatint on paper, 13 3/4 x 17 5/8 in. (34.9 x 44.8 cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, purchase with funds from the Print Committee (85.39)
© 2025 Emily Mason | Alice Trumbull Mason Foundation/ARS.

As Christina Weyl notes in the online project “The Women of Atelier 17: The Biographical Supplement”:

“…the experience of working at Atelier 17 also catalyzed a range of proto-feminist strategies and activity in the decades before women’s art movement of the 1970s. Even if these artists were not self-professed “feminists”—and few identified this way—the studio generated a wide spectrum of proto-feminist attitudes and practices, such as collaboration, network building, and collegial support of one another’s careers.”