The artist was born in Gilbert Mills, New York, in 1886, and until two years ago when he and his wife moved to California, he lived in western New York, in Batavia. When I looked up the actual date of his birth and found it to be March 15th, I realized that Roy was born under the right zodiacal sign for a watercolorist: the water sign of Pisces (February 18 -- March 20). And how very often a water plane is featured in his landscapes, and how appropriate that he should appear in American Artist again, in his natal month of March!

Over the years, beginning in 1929, Mason has been awarded seventeen major prizes including two gold medals; two Ranger Fund purchase awards; the Joseph Pennell Memorial Medal; two American Watercolor Society prizes; the Blair Purchase Prize for watercolor, Art Institute of Chicago; and others in Buffalo, New York, Chautauqua, New Haven, Rochester, Rockport, and most recently, the $300 prize for a watercolor at the Laguna Beach Art Association,

He was elected to the National Academy of Design as an Associate in the oil class in 1931 (after receiving his first Ranger Fund Purchase Prize at the Academy in 1930), and elevated to Academicianship in 1940. Other memberships include the American Watercolor Society, Philadelphia Water Color Club, Allied Artists of America, Audubon Artists, Baltimore Watercolor Society.