Raymond Mason

Who was Raymond Mason?

Raymond Grieg Mason OBE was a sculptor.

He trained at the Birmingham School of Arts and Crafts under William Bloye, the Royal College of Art, and Slade School of Art. He lived and worked in Paris beginning in 1946. He was a close friend of the late Nobel Prize winning scientist Maurice Wilkins.

He is known for his sculptures of tightly packed people made from clay, with works on McGill College Avenue in Montreal; the Tuileries, Paris; Georgetown, Washington, D.C.; and Madison Avenue, New York. His controversial 1991 work, Forward! in Birmingham's Centenary Square was destroyed by arson on 17 April 2003. The statue carried a reference to DNA in connection with Maurice Wilkins, who went to school in Birmingham and worked at the University of Birmingham.

He was awarded the Order of the British Empire for services to sculpture and to Anglo-French relations in the New Year Honours 2002.

Raymond Mason died 13 February 2010.