Signed with initials l.r.: VP and with the artist’s original handwritten label ‘To Lawrence thank you for having me’

Pencil, 24.5 by 15 cm (9 ¾ by 6 ins)

Provenance: a gift from the artist to his friend, the painter Sir Lawrence Gowing

Pasmore was a central figure in the formation of the Euston Road school in the late 1930s. The movement espoused realist painting based on close observation of the subject and is evident in the work of Pasmore as well as his contemporary William Coldstream and his pupil Lawrence Gowing. Pasmore’s lyrical style at this date shows the influence of Whistler (particularly in his atmospheric landscapes and cityscapes) as does the soft tonal quality evident in his interiors and life studies (of which this delicate pencil study is an example). Gowing was given this drawing by Pasmore and the two artists remained close friends. By the late 1940s Pasmore had moved towards the more purely abstract style for which he is perhaps best known today.