Barling is an Impressionistic painting which represents Pasmore’s initial exploration towards the abstraction that would characterise his later work. Picturing a wild garden on the outskirts of the small village of Barling in Essex, Pasmore’s imbues the scene with a sense of great serenity.

A year after Barling was painted, Pasmore and his wife, Wendy, moved to Chiswick where his work continued to developed rapidly towards pure abstraction. The culmination of this transitional period being his 1949 painting, The Gardens of Hammersmith, held in the Tate collection. Like most artists of the time, Pasmore was hugely influenced by the Impressionists, but perhaps more unusual is the impact that the paintings of Old Masters had on his work.