Winifred Mason


Winifred Mason was an African-American jeweler, active in New York in the 1940s. She worked primarily in copper, and was inspired by West Indian cultural traditions. She is believed to be the first commercial African-American jeweler in the United States.

Personal and Family

Winifred E. Mason, was born June 22, 1918, Manhattan, New York, New York.
Her father Joseph Hubert Mason, was born in Antiqua, British West Indies, her mother Juliette, was born in St Martin, French West Indies. They immigrated to the United States
and settled in New York, New York in 1915. According to the US Census records Winifred Mason was the first of four children all born in New York City. She married Jean E. Chenet September 13, 1948 in Manhattan, New York, New York. Chenet was born October 14, 1924 in Port au Prince, Haiti.

Education and Teaching

Mason received a BS in English Literature in 1934 and went on to receive a MA in teaching from New York University in 1936. In the early 1940s, Mason taught youth metalworking skills at Junior Achievement, where she met Art Smith. After graduating she hesitated to begin her career as a teacher, and she worked for a while as a teacher for the WPA and later as a crafts instructor at the Harlem Boys Club, but she chose another way as her life career.
Mason received a grant from the Rosenwald Fund to "gather folk material and basic art patterns used by the West Indian Negro and to express these feelings in jewelry." This research included time in Haiti, where she met her husband, Jean Chenet.

Studio and Jewelry

Her first piece of jewelry appeared in 1940 and it was a pendant in bronze, copper, and silver. It had to be of great interest among her friends and soon she began to get orders for the similar pieces. Mason never repeated her works and every piece she made was unique. When she couldn't find a proper instrument for her work she made it by her own. In 1943 she received her first oder from an exclusive department store on Fifth Avenue.
After working on jewelry at home, Mason opened and maintained a studio in Greenwich Village in the early 1940s. Jewelry from this studio was sold at national department stores like Lord and Taylor. Much of the jewelry was custom-made, and clientele included Billie Holiday. By the late 1940s there had been ten exhibitions of her jewelry including one-woman shows in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Among her employees was Art Smith, who went on to found his own studio and become one of the first significant African-American jewelers.
After her marriage, she spent much of her time in Haiti until the murder of her husband in 1963. Under her married name, Winifred Chenet, she sold "voodoo-inspired" jewelry in Haiti. She also operated a store in New York selling Haitian art.