Gear subsequently served in Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Cyprus, before participating in the Allied invasion of Italy, where in Siena and Florence he held his first solo exhibitions in 1944.

Between 1947 and 1950 Gear lived and worked in Paris,[3] where he met Eduardo Paolozzi, Alan Davie, Stephen Gilbert and many of the leading post-war generation of Parisian artists including Atlan, Da Silva, De Staël, Dubuffet, Hartung, Mathieu, Pignon, Poliakoff, Schoffer, Singier, Soulages and Zadkine.

In 1948 he held his first Paris and London solo exhibitions, and visited Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton, Peter Lanyon and Bryan Winter in St Ives.

In 1952, Gear produced the notable works, 'Early Spring' and 'March Landscape', both paintings similar in style, with abstract organic shapes in vibrant blues and greens.

When 'March Landscape' went on display for the first time at The Suter, a public debate about the merits of abstract art erupted in the 'Nelson Evening Mail' in December 1952, so much so that this was reported in England.

He moved to Littlebourne in Kent (1953), was elected a member of the London Group, and began receiving commissions for fabric and wallpaper designs, producing about 100 over the following nine years.

He became a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists in 1966, and was Guest Lecturer at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and the University of Western Australia, Perth (1966/67).

A few days before his death he had visited Hanover to receive the Leporello Prize from the government of Lower Saxony, to mark his work for "democratic art and artistic freedom".