Victor Pasmore

Acquired directly from the Artist by Mr & Mrs Adrian Flowers
Their sale, Christie's London, 30th May 1997, lot 154 (as Transparent Relief Construction in White, Black, Green and Crimson), where acquired by David Bowie

London, Tate, Victor Pasmore, 14th May - 27th June 1965, cat. no.116;
Bradford, Cartwright Hall, Victor Pasmore, 2nd February - 9th March 1980, cat. no.26 (as Transparent Relief Construction), with Arts Council tour to The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, The Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, Norwich, The Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester, The Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle and The Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Alan Bowness and Luigi Lambertini, Victor Pasmore, Thames and Hudson, London, 1980, cat. no.185, illustrated;
Anne Goodchild, Alastair Grieve and Elena Crippa, Victor Pasmore Towards a New Reality, Lund Humphries in association with Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, 2016, illustrated.

The relief elements all appear sound and securely attached. There is some slight rounding, rubbing and slight paint loss to the edges of the painted wooden relief elements in places, most apparent to the dark green and turquoise elements on the left side, and the black element in the centre. There is a small old knock to the bottom of the green element on the left side, with a small resultant loss. Some of the adhesive that has been used to affix the relief elements to the glass is slightly discoloured, with some cracking visible in places. There are some vertical lines of craquelure visible to the cream elements behind the glass, which are in line with the grain of the wood, with a small speck of associated loss to the upper edge of the leftmost element. There are some light scuffs to the work. There is a small loss to the glass in the upper right corner, and there are some scuffs and scratches to the glass in places, most apparent in the upper left corner and in the lower centre. There is some light surface dirt and matter to the relief elements in places, and the work may benefit from a light clean. Subject to the above, the work appears to be in very good overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals a few small areas of fluorescence and possible old retouchings, most noticeable to the bottom of the far left white element. The work is unframed. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

After visiting an exhibition of Picasso and Matisse at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1945, Victor Pasmore radically re-evaluated his approach to art. From 1937 Pasmore had been painting in the traditional French manner of Manet, Degas and Sickert while also teaching at the short lived Euston Road School with William Coldstream. Heavily influenced by the American artist Charles Biederman, as well as Piet Mondrian and the Bauhaus Constructivists, and encouraged by Ben Nicholson, Robert Adams and Adrian Heath, Pasmore began constructing reliefs in the early 1950s.

It is evident that Pasmore’s development of a Constructivist aesthetic was firmly architectonic in its conception.  In 1955, the year this work was produced, he was appointed consulting director of architectural design for the Peterlee development corporation, for which he designed a Constructivist concrete pavilion at the centre of the new residential estate, and in 1956 he worked with Ernö Goldfinger on the This is Tomorrow exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. Few of his early reliefs survive intact and it was not until he employed a professional joiner that works, such as the present lot, were of sufficient build quality to retain their structural integrity. In his own words, Pasmore describes the process of such radical artistic change:

'…I started by abandoning the paintbrush, with its illusionistic associations, and adopted the paper collage technique of early Cubism in which the painting was built forward from the picture-plane. This affirmation of the concrete surface and pigmental substance of painting led to the notion of constructing a picture like a carpenter constructs a box with wood, saw, hammer and nails. Hence the collage developed into relief…' (the Artist, quoted in Bowness and Lambertini, op. cit., p.100).

Adrian Flowers (1926 – 2016) and his first wife, Angela, the first owners of this work, were at the centre of the Contemporary art community in London. Adrian employed Terence Donovan and Brian Duffy in his photographic studio, from which he produced cutting edge advertising images as well as portraits. Adrian would often accept work from artists in return for photographic work and this way collected a number of pieces by Terry Frost, Ben Nicholson and Roger Hilton as well as Victor Pasmore. Angela, who had long been a supporter of young artists (she was the first person to acquire a piece by Dennis Mitchell), opened a gallery on Lyle street in 1970, which continues to support Contemporary artists to this day.