Paul Moss, Newcastle University fine art graduate and director of the Workplace Gallery in Gateshead said: “My instant reaction is it is a fantastic purchase. Victor Pasmore is a really important artist in the region.

“If they’ve bought this for £40,000 then you have to remember there are works by many other lesser artists whose works would come significantly cheaper than this.”

Asked what he would say to people who see the work as a meaningless set of lines on a plain background, Paul continued: “I think that’s a really naive perspective. It’s a lot like saying 1980s punk music is just a lot of noise. It’s not. In the end, it turned out to be a valuable cultural phenomenon.

“It’s not a difficult thing to understand the work of Victor Pasmore. As I understand it, it’s a lot to do with landscape and colour, and many things that are around us all the time.

“Often I think the purchase of art is seen as money that could be spent on, say, health, or some other area, but there’s an inherent value to our culture in the purchase of art.”

He added: “If we don’t support the idea that creativity is important in society then we are a pretty dull race.”

Tyneside painter's work harvests plenty of cash

TWO works by Tyneside artist Myles Birket Foster sold for more than £180,000 yesterday at a Christie’s auction in London.

Foster was born in North Shields in 1825 and left school at the age of 15 to work for his father’s beer bottling company.

Yesterday his painting Harvest Time, estimated at £50,000, sold for £109,250 and his work The Hay Wain, also rated at £50,000, fetched £70,850.