(Edwin John) Victor Pasmore

Artist, born in Chelsham, Surrey, SE England, UK. Largely self-taught, he was one of the founders of the London ‘Euston Road School’ (1937). He became an art teacher, and after World War 2 began to paint in a highly abstract style, in which colour is often primarily used to suggest relief. His works include Rectangular Motif (1949) and Inland Sea (1950, Tate, London). He became a Companion of Honour in 1981.

Victor Pasmore (3 December 1908 – 23 January 1998) was an English artist and architect. He pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s. He studied painting part-time at the Central School of Art and was a member of the Euston Road School.

Pasmore was a leading figure in the promotion of abstract art and reform of the fine art education system. From 1943 - 49 he taught at Camberwell School of Art where one of his students was Terry Frost whom he advised not to bother with the School's formal teaching and to instead study the works in the National Gallery. In 1950 he was commissioned to design an abstract mural for a bus depot in Kingston upon Hull and the following year Pasmore contributed a mural to the Festival of Britain that promoted a number of the British Constructivists. There he developed a general art and design course inspired by the 'basic course' of the Bauhaus that became the model for higher arts education across the UK. Pasmore was a supporter of fellow artist Richard Hamilton, giving him a teaching job in Newcastle and contributing a constructivist structure to the exhibition "This is Tomorrow" in collaboration with Ernő Goldfinger and Helen Phillips. Pasmore's interest in the synthesis of art and architecture was given free hand when he was appointed Consulting Director of Architectural Design for Peterlee development corporation in 1955. the centerpiece of the town design became an abstract Public Art structure of his design, the Apollo Pavilion. The structure became the focus for local criticism over the failures of the Development Corporation but Pasmore remained a defender of his work, returning to the town to face critics of the Pavilion at a public meeting in 1982.

Pasmore represented Britain at the 1960 Venice Biennale and was a trustee of the Tate Gallery, donating a number of works to the collection.