View to the Thames is a wonderful rediscovery emerging from a private collection for the first time. It belongs to the critical series of riverscapes which Victor Pasmore executed while living at 16 Hammersmith Terrace from 1943-47. These beautiful, serene works reveal the critically engaged Pasmore exploring the pictorial opportunities laid out by the Post-Impressionists which informed his earliest paintings, as well as an eye to Turner (who was a strong early influence, as much for his independence of spirit as for his visionary work), Whistler and Chinese scrolls, while simultaneously hinting at formal concerns which ultimately led to his radical, abstract works.

Indeed, when reviewing Pasmore’s constructions, which represent a completely new visual language intended for the modern world, it is at first difficult to reconcile them with his early paintings. However, with the advantage of hindsight, one can observe formal experimentation at play which hints at his future abstraction. That is not to say such an extreme transformation was inevitable; it is testament to Pasmore’s conviction that he abandoned a post-Impressionist style of painting, which was garnering him critical and commercial success, for a fundamental, new direction. It is why the emergence of a painting such as the present is an exciting encounter, giving further insight into the developments and processes of Pasmore’s remarkable and distinct career.

Pasmore and his wife Wendy moved to the Thames in west London, first at Chiswick and later at nearby Hammersmith, after their house in Ebury Street had suffered bomb damage. It had been a turbulent time in the artist’s life; having registered as a conscientious objector during the War, he was forcibly enlisted, deserted and briefly imprisoned before a second application for exemption was granted. On this occasion, he was supported by letters from Augustus John, Clive Bell and Kenneth Clark, whose statement read:

The drama of these events is absent in his riverside works, where the new surroundings gave him time and space to develop his painting. He looked again to the work of Cezanne, van Gogh and Seurat, but now scrutinised their writings and theories as much as their paintings. Theory was of increasing importance, and Pasmore’s experimentation with abstraction increased, replacing naturalist realism with detached formalism. In the present work, the design element, vertical and horizontal structures, the washing hanging as nearly independent, ambiguous forms, are characteristic of the paintings from this series. The curvilinear tree also points to the spiral paintings that were to immediately follow this period, such as Spiral Motif in Green, Violet, Blue and Gold: The Coast of the Inland Sea (1950, Tate). The composition relates closely to Pasmore’s Riverside Gardens, Hammersmith (1946, formerly in the collection of Derek Hill, now Glebe House and Gallery, Co. Donegal), depicting the same view from the window, across the back gardens of Hammersmith terrace and down to the Thames. These years spent by the Thames were rich in the production and rapid development of Pasmore’s career, and View to the Thames enhances this appreciation.