John Richard Passmore

(1904-1984)

Study for The Bathers, c.1951

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Mr John D. Moore, Sydney
thence by descent
Private collection, New South Wales

RELATED WORK
The Bathers, 1951, oil on composition board, 91.0 x 183.0cm, private collection

Whilst residing in London having relocated in 1933, John Passmore was working for Lintas Pty Ltd as a layout artist during the day and attending evening classes at the Westminster School of Art, studying under Mark Gertler and Bernard Meninsky. Living in London gave Passmore the opportunity to be surrounded by the historically significant works of artists such as Rembrandt, Tintoretto, Cézanne and Picasso, all of whom had a profound influence.

On his return to Australia in 1951 Passmore's paintings were frequently characterised by figurative displays, often situated along the Sydney waterfront. The present work, Study for The Bathers, is poised between figuration and abstraction. Passmore accentuates the bathers mid-dive by surrounding the figures with areas void of paint.

Fellow artist, Elwyn Lynn, discusses Passmore's figurative works in his 1985 Art and Australia article: 'It is Passmore's group of bathers and nudes even if, unlike the grey works, the colours derive from Cézanne...The grouping seems almost fortuitous in its dispersal; Cezanne would make a pyramidal pile of very still nudes, distinctly separated from the landscape, but Passmore has them lying in varied postures and so dispersed that they are either emerging from or merging with the landscape.'1

1. Elwyn Lynn, 'John Passmore and the legend of Paul Cezanne', Art and Australia, Vol. 23,
No. 1, Spring 1985, p. 60