Mason was a recorder of the local scene and American sporting life. Mason's father was an amateur landscape painter, engraver and outdoorsman. Family hunting, fishing and painting trips often included the artist Chauncy Ryder, who was influential in Mason's development as a watercolorist.
Mason began as a farmer and then moved to Batavia, NY where he worked as an engraver of gunstocks for the Baker Gun Company. Later he worked for Ketterlinus Lithograph Company in Philadelphia, and had a commercial art studio with his sister, Nina Mason Booth. As early as 1909 sketches made on a trip to Puerto Rico were published in The Outing Magazine. Later illustrations were published in Reader's Digest, True, Collier's, and The Saturday Evening Post.
In 1913 he married Lena A. Seitz. In 1917 he returned to Batavia as head of the art department for the family business, where he remained until 1959 when he retired to La Jolla, California.
Mason says on his biographic form about his early life:
"not a pupil of any art school, received some instruction from my father F.E. Mason a steel engraver and die sinker--mostly self taught--started as illustrator in sporting magazines, later a commercial artist and lithographic designer--later connected with business enterprises--later landscape and figure painting. Have hobby of collecting pictures, own modest collection, also few etchings and bronzes."
An exhibition of his watercolors was held at Grand Central Art Galleries (1953) and a retrospective of his work was held at the Genesee County Museum (Mumford, NY) in 1986.
