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Mason’s clearest statement about “architec-tural abstract art” was written on February 20, 1952, with the intention of differentiating her work from Abstract Expressionism:

In Abstract Art there are two fairly clear streams or directions. One is called Expressionist abstract art, the other, Architectural abstract art. The latter is the type of work that has always interested me . . . The new liberty achieved through eliminating subject matter in a painting brought with it a new discipline . . . In the middle of the 20th century an American abstract artist may choose to hold up a tragic, expressionist mirror to our time using no formal structure, or may choose to make a painting a positive, architectural construction. Architectural is a fitting word to describe this work. It is building and not destroying. It is making color, density, dark and light, rhythm and balance work together without depending on references and associations. This is my concept of Architectural Abstract Art.