British
Painter of figures, landscapes, still-life and abstracts in oils, constructivist, theoretician and teacher. He attended evening classes at the Central School under A.S. Hartrick 1927-31, and in 1932 joined the LAA which sponsored his first exhibition at the Cooling Gallery 1933, and through which he met Coldstream and Rogers. He exhibited at the LG from 1930, becoming a member in 1934, and at the Objective Abstraction Exhibition, Zwemmer Gallery 1934. In 1937 he was a founder with Coldstream and Rogers of the Euston Road School and in 1940 married Wendy Lloyd Blood.

In the late 1940s he turned to abstraction and in 1950 visited St. Ives and was encouraged by Nicholson. In the early 1950s he was associated with the constructivist group that included Hill, Adams, Heath and Martins. He organized exhibitions of abstract art with them at the AIA Gallery, Redfern Gallery and Gimpel Fils. Influenced by Biederman, Pasmore started to construct reliefs.

In 1966 Pasmore moved to Malta and returned to painting. He has exhibited regularly in leading London galleries, including the Redfern 1940-55, the Marlborough Gallery from 1961, and retrospective exhibitions were held at the Tate Gallery in 1965 and 1980. His work has been represented in numerous exhibitions including the 1960 Venice Biennale and is in many public
collections including the Tate Gallery and MOMA, New York. He taught at Camberwell School of Art 1943-9, and at the Central School 1949-54. From 1954-61 he was master of painting, Department of Fine Art, Durham University, and started the abstract foundation course 'The Developing Process'. A Trustee of the Tate Gallery 1963-6, his many awards include a
CBE 1959, and in 1981 Companion of Honour.

His early painting was influenced by Fauvism but this gave way to the realist Euston Road style influenced by Sickert and Degas. In the 1940s he worked on a series of Thames and London scenes which sprang from a study of Whistler and Turner and which heralded his abstraction work. This evolved from paintings of spiral forms to constructed reliefs. His later painting combines abstraction with refrences to natural forms. All his work reflects his interest in Japanese art.

LIT:
Catalogue Raisonne by Alan Bowness and Luigi Lambertini, 1980
Tate Gallery exhibition catalogue, 1980.