TAMAR MASON

Tamar Mason (b. 1966 Johannesburg) lives and works in Mbombela, South Africa. She received a fine arts diploma from Scuola Lorenzo dei Medici, Florence (1987) and a BA from the University of South Africa (1993). From 1987 until 2002 she worked with rural women’s community projects on a project-to-project basis, teaching embroidery and producing artist books, such as those she exhibited at the National Museum of American History, Washington, DC. Community commissions include the 35m long wall hanging for the Mpumalanga Legislature chamber, documenting the history and prehistory of the province; and the 11 large-scale panels for the Origins Centre, Wits University, which tell the story of the Bushmen or San in Southern Africa. Mason is Co-Director of The Artists’ Press, a lithography studio printing and publishing hand printed limited edition prints by leading artists from southern Africa, including William Kentridge and Diane Victor.

In 2024 she exhibited Seeing Shadows, her first solo exhibition with Pippy Houldsworth Gallery. In 2020 Tamar was featured in Pippy Houldsworth Gallery’s Insights programme, a solo virtual project, and in 2022 was included in Where cloudy waters collide..., a group exhibition at the gallery. Other exhibitions include Now, Museu Inima De Paula, Belo Horizonte, Brazil_; An Odyssey in Print: Adventures in the Smithsonian Libraries_, National Museum of American History, Washington, DC; Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg; Rijswijk Textile Biennial, Museum Rijswijk, The Netherlands; Museum Africa, Johannesburg and Pretoria Art Gallery and Museum, Pretoria. Collections include The Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth; Wits Art Museum, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; University of Wisconsin- Madison, Madison, WI; and Mpumalanga Legislature Collection, Mbombela.

Courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery