November '63

Bryan Robertson (then director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery) wrote in the New Statesman in his review of Gear's restropective at Gimpels in 1961, 'Most of his [Gear's] richly coloured and robustly designed work comes from nature: vibrations of light and colour over foliage or the play of light on water; and it has that tough simplicity which usually only the French dare attempt. Other paintings may bring in wing- or blade-shaped sculptural forms and are less evenly distributed in terms of mass and volume. There is an early debt to Picasso, and Gear has been influenced by other artists. But who hasn't?' (see J. McEwen, William Gear, Aldershot, 2003, p. 91).