The formal neutrality of the square format has been retained from the 1960s constructed reliefs. The ensuing stability and order gives an underlying counterpoint to the more random deployment of rounded brown oblongs, coloured ovals and black lines. Whatever associations with the natural world these shapes may contain Pasmore was clear that, the symbol is intrinsic in the form of the painting and not a conceptual factor outside it. ₁ In other words the imagery is, intrinsic and organic and is not a distortion or abstraction from natural appearances.

As well as reflecting the relative influence of the Maltese environment works like Linear Symphony reveal the experimental tenor and conceptual restlessness of Pasmore’s work, its moving between different aesthetic poles. He talked of the ‘developing process’ which printmaking and the collaboration with architects and urban planners on the long drawn out Peterlee New Town project in the north east brought to the fore. In 1988 Pasmore explained to Peter Fuller how Peterlee, gave me a sense of multi dimensional space, mobile modern space, not the confined space of the Renaissance. ₂

Such qualities of flux, movement and infinite space are evident in the aptly titled Linear Sympony. The hardness of architecture is, though, replaced by the organic softness of shapes whose residual associations with nature are only of an ambiguous kind.

The early 1980s proved an important moment in Pasmore’ s ever-evolving career. An Arts Council touring show in 1980 was followed by his becoming Companion of Honour (1981) and Royal Academician (1983).

₁  ,Victor Pasmore. Ed. Grieve.Tate Publishing p 139. 2010.
₂ Grieve 2010 p.98.

The Artist
Galerie Farber, Brussels
Private collection, Brussels
Osborne Samuel, London

Alan Bowness & Luigi Lambertini, Victor Pasmore: with a catalogue raisonne of paintings, constructions and graphics 1926-1979, published by Thames and Hudson, 1980, ref. B 549

Galerie Farber, Brussels, 1974