John Passmore was born in Sydney, Australia in 1904. After studying at Julian Ashton's Sydney Art School he travelled to London in 1933 where he worked at Lintas advertising agency and studied at Westminster School of Art, eventually returning to Australia in 1951. Passmore's work in England was greatly influenced by the paintings of Cézanne, which he saw in various public collections in London
Painter John Passmore was born in Sydney, Australia in 1904. Leaving school at 13, he began his career as a commercial artist working as a paint-mixer for a signwriter. In the early 1920s he was employed by the Sydney advertising agency Smith & Julius. He then studied briefly at Julian Ashton's Sydney Art School and took private classes from George Lambert before travelling to London in 1933, where he remained for the next 18 years.
After his arrival, he initially stayed for a few weeks in the flat of fellow Australian, sculptor, William Dobell, and later found lodgings in Bayswater. He subsequently began working at Lintas Advertising Agency alongside British painter Keith Vaughan, who became a close friend and the most important influence on his life (Pierse 2017, p. 21). Passmore then enrolled for evening classes at Westminster School of Art, training under two of the so-called 'Whitechapel Boys', the Anglo-Jewish painters, Mark Gertler and Bernard Meninsky. Passmore's early work in England was also greatly influenced by the paintings of Cézanne, which he saw in various public collections in London, and in books that he purchased. In early 1940, working from a cottage in Suffolk belonging to his art director at Lintas, Reg Jenkins, Passmore absorbed Cézanne's theories and began to paint landscapes near the house and produce compositions of nude bathers reminiscent of works by the French master. Passmore later recalled that `Gooseberry Cottage was half-way between Constable's country, which was in Dedham Vale to the north-east, and Gainsborough's country which was in the opposite direction. It was a rural thing you see. But the character of Cézanne wasn't a rural thing [...] the character of Cézanne was one of learning to paint [...] There's two things about Cézanne - you can imitate him as much as you like and you can fall flat on your face [...] what you have to do is study him as deeply as he studied himself` (Art Gallery NSW). In 1935 he exhibited at Thomas Agnew's Gallery alongside fellow Australian James Cant, and English painters, Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland, Ivon Hitchens, John Piper and Julian Trevalyan (Butler 2013). During the Second World War, Passmore was conscripted and served in the Royal Air Force, although due to poor health he was discharged from active service. In 1947 he resumed work at Lintas and for a time he shared a large house in Hamilton Gardens, St John's Wood, with modernist figurative painters, Keith Vaughan, John Minton and Robert Colquhoun.
Passmore finally returned to Sydney in 1951 hoping the warmer climate would help his ailing health. He continued to develop his personal pictorial language, evolving from Cezanne-like forms and use of colour towards his own distinctive palette, recurring motifs, and an interpretation of his Sydney surroundings, often poised between figuration and abstraction. He took part in the avant-garde exhibition ˂em˃Direction I˂em˃ held at Macquarie Galleries in 1956, which launched abstract expressionism on the Sydney art scene. He also taught at the Julian Ashton School, where among his pupils were prominent abstract artist Yvonne Audette and landscape painter John Olsen. Passmore later taught at Newcastle Technical College, the National Art School, and East Sydney Technical College. In a letter to Audette, then living in Italy, Passmore expressed the wish to travel once again, but his work was so little appreciated in Australia that he could not afford to do so (Heathcote 2014, p. 61). Thanks to a Helena Rubinstein travelling art scholarship, in 1958 he was eventually able to travel in Europe again for twelve months. Unfortunately, while visiting Audette in Italy, he had a mild heart attack and had to interrupt his long-awaited tour. Upon his return to Australia, he resigned from East Sydney Technical College in 1962 and spent the last 20 years of his life in isolation at Rushcutters Bay, a Sydney suburb, where he continued to paint. John Passmore died at Stanmore, Sydney, Australia in 1984. His work is not currently held in any UK public collections. In Australia his work is represented in the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Australia.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [John Passmore]
Publications related to [John Passmore] in the Ben Uri Library