Victor Pasmore (1908 - 1998)

Oil on canvas
47.5 x 59.5 cm

Provenance
Redfern Gallery, London
Private Collection, London

Window at Dieppe, 1932 marks a departure in Victor Pasmore’s work, being among his earliest paintings in which the figure takes centre stage. Part self-portrait, it was undertaken when Pasmore was just 24 years old. The woman seated opposite him has never been identified and remains an elusive presence, not just in her identity, but also the illusionary manner in which she has been painted.

In 1933, as his reputation began to grow, Pasmore joined the London Artists’ Association, where he met William Coldstream and Claude Rogers, who, alongside Graham Bell, would later form the Euston Road School. That same year he held his first solo exhibition at the Cooling Galleries, London, and in 1934 exhibited at the Zwemmer Gallery in the now-historic exhibition Objective Abstractions.

Window at Dieppe was included in one of Pasmore’s early exhibitions organised by the London Group in 1935, where it was purchased by his next-door neighbour, Lady Herbert. The Pasmores lived adjacent to the Herberts at 16 Hammersmith Terrace until 1948. The work remained in the Herbert family for over seventy years.