Victor Pasmore

VICTOR PASMORE (Chelsham, United Kingdom, 1908 - Malta, 1998).
Untitled, 1992.
Etching and aquatint on Fabriano paper with white Velin collage, copy 73/75.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Measurements: 76 x 56 cm.

Artist and architect, Victor was trained at the Summer Fields School in Oxford and at the Harrow in London. In the late 1920s he was involved in the formation of the Euston Road School and the first exhibition of abstract art after the First World War. In early 1947 the influence of Ben Nicholson and other artists associated with "Circle: an international survey of constructivist art", an art book published in London in 1937, will lead him to focus on constructivist abstraction, becoming one of the main renovators of this language. Pasmore's abstract work, often characterized by collage and relief construction, pioneered the use of new materials, and often posed on a large, architectural scale. In addition to being a leading figure in the promotion of abstract art, Pasmore was also one of those responsible for the reform of art education. Between 1943 and 1949 he taught at Camberwell School of Art, and from 1952 he directed the art course at Kings College, Durham. There he developed a general art and design course inspired by the Bauhaus foundation course, which became the model for art education throughout the United Kingdom. His prestige will be consolidated, and in 1961 he will represent his country at the Venice Biennale, after having participated in Documenta II in Kassel in 1959. He is currently present in prominent collections around the world such as the Tate Britain, the Royal Academy in London, the MoMA in New York or the Ashmolean in Oxford, among many others.