I regard the relationship between painting, sculpture and architecture, considered as a synthesis, as being of two kinds. That of free forms functioning as complimentary and activating forces. That of complete integration whereby all three factors abandon their particular identity and unite as a single operation.
- Victor Pasmore
As of June 2025, Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert and Frankie Rossi Art represent the Estate of Victor Pasmore.
A pioneering figure in 20th century British art, Victor Pasmore (1908–1998) is celebrated for his pivotal role in the development of abstract art in Britain. Beginning as a figurative painter, Pasmore’s radical shift to abstraction in the late 1940s challenged prevailing critical expectations and placed him at the forefront of the modernist movement. His innovative work spanned painting, collage, relief construction, and urban planning – each medium reflecting his rigorous inquiry into form, space, and structure.
Pasmore’s approach was both philosophical and formal. He embraced principles of harmony and balance drawn from the organic processes of nature and the formal, non-descriptive elements of music, while simultaneously challenging the boundaries of traditional pictorial composition. In the post-World War II context, Pasmore saw the period as one of creative reconstruction and contributed meaningfully to a global explosion in the visual arts, grounded in a renewed freedom of expression. His legacy remains influential for generations of artists navigating the intersection of abstraction, architecture, and the broader ideals of social and cultural renewal.
Pasmore has been the subject of several retrospectives, including exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1954), Cambridge Arts Council Gallery (1955), and internationally at the Venice Biennale, Belgrade, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels (1960), and Scandinavia (1961). In 1954, he became Head of Painting at Durham University and was appointed Director of Architectural Design for the new town of Peterlee in 1955. That same year, he contributed to This Is Tomorrow at the Whitechapel Gallery, collaborating with Helen Phillips and Ernö Goldfinger. In 1957, he co-created an Exhibit with Richard Hamilton and Lawrence Alloway, shown in Newcastle and at the ICA. Pasmore was appointed a Trustee of the Tate Gallery in 1963 and two years later he was honoured with a major retrospective at Tate Gallery in 1965.
Pasmore’s work can be found in major museums and public collections worldwide, including Tate Britain (UK), Royal Academy of Arts (UK), Museum of Modern Art (USA), British Council (UK) and Yale Center for British Art (USA). Institutions and private collections include Deutsche Bank and, formerly, that of David Bowie. A monograph on Pasmore was published in 2016 by Lund Humphries.
