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Laurence Stephen Lowry ( ; 1 November 1887 – 23 February 1976) was an English artist. His drawings and paintings mainly depict
Pendlebury,
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly.
The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...
(where he lived and worked for more than 40 years) as well as
Salford
Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...
and its vicinity.
Lowry is famous for painting scenes of life in the
industrial district
Industrial district concept was initially used by Alfred Marshall to describe some aspects of the industrial organisation of nations. Industrial district (ID) is a place where workers and firms, specialised in a main industry and auxiliary indus ...
s of
North West England in the mid-20th century. He developed a distinctive style of painting and is best known for his urban landscapes peopled with human figures, often referred to as "matchstick men". He painted mysterious unpopulated landscapes, brooding portraits and the unpublished "marionette" works, which were only found after his death. He was fascinated by the sea, and painted pure seascapes, depicting only sea and sky, from the early 1940s.
His use of stylised figures which cast no shadows, and lack of weather effects in many of his landscapes led critics to label him a
naïve "Sunday painter".
Lowry holds the record for
rejecting British
honours
Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...
—five, including a
knighthood
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the ...
(1968). A collection of his work is on display in
The Lowry
The Lowry is a theatre and gallery complex at Salford Quays, Salford, Greater Manchester, England. It is named after the early 20th-century painter L. S. Lowry, known for his paintings of industrial scenes in North West England. The complex ope ...
, a purpose-built art gallery on
Salford Quays
Salford Quays is an area of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, near the end of the Manchester Ship Canal. Previously the site of Manchester Docks, it became one of the first and largest urban regeneration projects in the United Kingdom fol ...
. On 26 June 2013, a major retrospective opened at the
Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
in London, his first at the gallery; in 2014 his first solo exhibition outside the UK was held in
Nanjing
Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...
, China.
Early life
![117 Station Road, Pendlebury](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/117_Station_Road%2C_Pendlebury.jpg)
Lowry was born on 1 November 1887 at 8 Barrett Street
Stretford, which was then in
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly.
The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...
. It was a difficult birth, and his mother Elizabeth, who hoped for a girl, was uncomfortable even looking at him at first. Later she expressed envy of her sister Mary, who had "three splendid daughters" instead of one "clumsy boy". Lowry's father Robert, who was of
Northern Irish
Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...
descent,
worked as a clerk for the Jacob Earnshaw and Son Property Company and was a withdrawn and introverted man. Lowry once described him as "a cold fish" and "(the sort of man who) realised he had a life to live and did his best to get through it."
After Lowry's birth, his mother's health was too poor for her to continue teaching. She is reported to have been a religious woman who was talented and respected, with aspirations of becoming a
concert pianist
A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...
. She was also an irritable, nervous woman brought up to expect high standards by her stern father. Like him, she was controlling and intolerant of failure. She used illness as a means of securing the attention and obedience of her mild and affectionate husband and she dominated her son in the same way. Lowry maintained that he had an unhappy childhood, growing up in a repressive family atmosphere. Although his mother demonstrated no appreciation of her son's gifts as an artist, a number of books Lowry received as Christmas presents from his parents are inscribed to ''"Our dearest Laurie"''. At school he made few friends and showed no academic aptitude. His father was affectionate towards him but was, by all accounts, a quiet man who was at his most comfortable fading into the background as an unobtrusive presence.
Much of Lowry's early years were spent in the leafy Manchester suburb of
Victoria Park Victoria Park may refer to:
Places Australia
* Victoria Park Nature Reserve, a protected area in Northern Rivers region, New South Wales
* Victoria Park, Adelaide, a park and racecourse
* Victoria Park, Brisbane, a public park and former golf ...
,
Rusholme
Rusholme () is an area of Manchester, England, two miles south of the city centre. The population of the ward at the 2011 census was 13,643. Rusholme is bounded by Chorlton-on-Medlock to the north, Victoria Park and Longsight to the east, F ...
, but in 1909, when he was 22, due to financial pressures, the family moved to 117 Station Road in the industrial town of
Pendlebury. Here the landscape comprised textile mills and factory chimneys rather than trees. Lowry later recalled: "At first I detested it, and then, after years I got pretty interested in it, then obsessed by it ... One day I missed a train from Pendlebury –
placeI had ignored for seven years – and as I left the station I saw the Acme Spinning Company's mill ... The huge black framework of rows of yellow-lit windows standing up against the sad, damp charged afternoon sky. The mill was turning out ... I watched this scene — which I'd looked at many times without seeing — with rapture ..."
Education
![Peel Building University of Salford](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Peel_Building_University_of_Salford.jpg)
After leaving school, Lowry began a career working for the Pall Mall Company, later collecting rents. He would spend some time in his lunch hour at
Buile Hill Park
Buile Hill Park is a Grade II listed public park in Salford, Greater Manchester, England. Covering it is the largest public park in the city, as well as the second oldest after Peel Park. The park and mansion are owned by Salford City Council. ...
and in the evenings took private art lessons in antique and freehand drawing. In 1905, he secured a place at the
Manchester School of Art
Manchester School of Art in Manchester, England, was established in 1838 as the Manchester School of Design. It is the second oldest art school in the United Kingdom after the Royal College of Art which was founded the year before. It is now par ...
, where he studied under the French
Impressionist,
Pierre Adolphe Valette
Pierre Adolphe Valette (13 October 1876 – 18 April 1942) was a French Impressionist painter who spent most of his career in England. His most acclaimed paintings are urban landscapes of Manchester, now in the collection of Manchester Ar ...
. Lowry was full of praise for Valette as a teacher, remarking "I cannot over-estimate the effect on me of the coming into this drab city of Adolphe Valette, full of French impressionists, aware of everything that was going on in Paris". In 1915 he moved on to the Royal Technical Institute, Salford (later to become the Royal Technical College, Salford and now the
University of Salford
, caption = Coat of ArmsUniversity of Salford
, mottoeng = "Let us seek higher things"
, established = 1850 - Pendleton Mechanics Institute 1896 – Royal Technical Institute, Salford 1967 – gained ...
) where his studies continued until 1925. There he developed an interest in industrial landscapes and began to establish his own style.
[McLean (1978)]
Lowry's oil paintings were originally impressionistic and dark in tone but D. B. Taylor of the ''
Manchester Guardian'' took an interest in his work and encouraged him to move away from the sombre palette he was using. Taking this advice on board, Lowry began to use a white background to lighten the pictures.
He developed a distinctive style of painting and is best known for his urban landscapes peopled with human figures, often referred to as "matchstick men". He also painted mysterious unpopulated landscapes, brooding portraits and the unpublished "marionette" works, which were only found after his death.
Death of his parents
His father died in 1932, leaving debts. His mother, subject to neurosis and depression, became bedridden and dependent on her son for care. Lowry painted after his mother had fallen asleep, between 10:00 p.m. and 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. Many paintings produced during this period were damning self-portraits (often referred to as the ''"Horrible Heads"'' series), which demonstrate the influence of
expressionism and may have been inspired by an exhibition of
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
's work at
Manchester Art Gallery
Manchester Art Gallery, formerly Manchester City Art Gallery, is a publicly owned art museum on Mosley Street in Manchester city centre. The main gallery premises were built for a learned society in 1823 and today its collection occupies three ...
in 1931. He expressed regret that he received little recognition as an artist until his mother died (1939) and that she was not able to enjoy his success. From the mid-1930s until at least 1939, Lowry took annual holidays at
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick-upon-Tweed (), sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England. The 2011 United Kingdom census reco ...
. After the outbreak of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
Lowry served as a volunteer fire watcher and became an official
war artist in 1943. In 1953, he was appointed Official Artist at the
Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
The coronation of Elizabeth II took place on 2 June 1953 at Westminster Abbey in London. She acceded to the throne at the age of 25 upon the death of her father, George VI, on 6 February 1952, being proclaimed queen by her privy and executive ...
.
After his mother's death in October 1939, he became depressed and neglected the upkeep of his house to such a degree that the landlord repossessed it in 1948. He was not short of money and bought "The Elms" in
Mottram in Longdendale
Mottram in Longdendale is a village in Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. At the 2011 census, the population for the ward of Longdendale, which includes Mottram and the surrounding area, was 9,950.
Historically part of Cheshire, it lies in ...
then in
Cheshire. The area was much more rural but Lowry professed to dislike both the house and the area:
Although he considered the house ugly and uncomfortable, it was spacious enough both to set up his studio in the dining room and to accommodate the collection of china and clocks that he had inherited from his mother; he stayed there until his death almost 30 years later.
Personal life
In later years, Lowry spent holidays at the Seaburn Hotel in
Sunderland, painting scenes of the beach and nearby ports and coal mines.
When he had no sketchbook, Lowry drew scenes in pencil or
charcoal on the back of envelopes, serviettes and cloakroom tickets and presented them to young people sitting with their families. Such serendipitous pieces are now worth thousands of pounds.
He was a secretive and mischievous man who enjoyed stories irrespective of their truth. His friends observed that his anecdotes were more notable for humour than accuracy and in many cases he set out deliberately to deceive. His stories about the fictional Ann were inconsistent and he invented other people as frameworks on which to hang his tales. The collection of clocks in his living room were all set at different times: to some people, he said that this was because he did not want to know the real-time; to others, he claimed that it was to save him from being deafened by their simultaneous chimes.
The owner of an art gallery in Manchester who visited him at his home, The Elms, noted that while his armchair was sagging and the carpet frayed, Lowry was surrounded by items such as his beloved
Rossetti
The House of Rossetti is an Italian noble, and Boyar Princely family appearing in the 14th-15th century, originating among the patrician families, during the Republic of Genoa, with branches of the family establishing themselves in the Kingdom o ...
drawing,
''Proserpine'', as well as a
Lucian Freud
Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewis ...
drawing located between two
Tompion clocks.
Lowry had many long-lasting friendships, including the Salford artist
Harold Riley, and made new friends throughout his adult life. He bought works from young artists he admired, such as
James Lawrence Isherwood
James Lawrence Isherwood (1917–1989) was an English artist, born in Wigan, Lancashire. He often painted subject and images (landscapes, seascapes, and portraits) from the Wigan area in a style that became known as 'Wigan style'. His style has b ...
, whose ''Woman with Black Cat'' hung on his studio wall. He was friends with some of these artists; he befriended the 23-year-old
Cumberland artist
Sheila Fell
Sheila Fell (20 July 1931 – 15 December 1979) was an English artist. She was born at Aspatria, Cumberland in 1931. Although she lived in London for the greater part of her life, she devoted her career to painting the Cumberland landscape.
Bi ...
in November 1955, describing her as "the finest landscape artist of the mid-20th century". He supported Fell's career by buying several pictures that he gave to museums. Fell later described him as "A great humanist. To be a humanist, one has first to love human beings, and to be a great humanist, one has to be slightly detached from them". As he never married, this affected his influence but he did have several female friends. At the age of 88 he said that he had "never had a woman". Although seen as a mostly solitary and private person, Lowry enjoyed attending football matches and was an ardent
supporter of Manchester City F.C..
Retirement
Lowry retired from the Pall Mall Property Company in 1952 on his 65th birthday. In 1957 an unrelated 13-year-old schoolgirl called Carol Ann Lowry wrote to him at her mother's urging to ask his advice on becoming an artist. He visited her home in
Heywood and befriended the family. His friendship with Carol Ann Lowry lasted for the rest of his life. BBC Radio 4 broadcast in 2001 a dramatisation by Glyn Hughes of Lowry's relationship with Carol Ann.
In the 1960s Lowry shared exhibitions in Salford with Warrington-born artist Reginald Waywell D.F.A.
Lowry joked about retiring from the art world, citing his lack of interest in the changing landscape. Instead, he began to focus on groups of figures and odd imaginary characters. Unknown to his friends and the public, Lowry produced a series of erotic works that were not seen until after his death. The paintings depict the mysterious ''"
Ann
Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie.
Anne is sometimes used as a male name in the ...
"'' figure, who appears in portraits and sketches produced throughout his lifetime, enduring sexually charged and humiliating tortures. When these works were exhibited at the Art Council's Centenary exhibition at the
Barbican in 1988, art critic Richard Dorment wrote in ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' that these works "reveal a sexual anxiety which is never so much as hinted at in the work of the previous 60 years." The group of erotic works, which are sometimes referred to as "the mannequin sketches" or "marionette works", are kept at the Lowry Centre and are available for visitors to see on request. Some are also brought up into the public display area on a rotation system. Manchester author
Howard Jacobson
Howard Eric Jacobson (born 25 August 1942) is a British novelist and journalist. He is known for writing comic novels that often revolve around the dilemmas of British Jewish characters.Ragi, K. R., "Howard Jacobson's ''The Finkler Question'' as ...
has argued that the images are just part of Lowry's melancholy and tortured view of the world and that they would change the public perception of the complexity of his work if they were more widely seen.
Death and legacy
![LowryCentre](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/LowryCentre.jpg)
Lowry died of
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...
at the Woods Hospital in
Glossop,
Derbyshire
Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...
, on 23 February 1976, aged 88. He was buried in the
Southern Cemetery in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
, next to his parents. He left an estate valued at £298,459, and a considerable number of artworks by himself and others to Carol Ann Lowry, who, in 2001, obtained trademark protection of the artist's signature.
Lowry left a cultural legacy, his works often sold for millions of pounds and inspired other artists.
The Lowry
The Lowry is a theatre and gallery complex at Salford Quays, Salford, Greater Manchester, England. It is named after the early 20th-century painter L. S. Lowry, known for his paintings of industrial scenes in North West England. The complex ope ...
art gallery in
Salford Quays
Salford Quays is an area of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, near the end of the Manchester Ship Canal. Previously the site of Manchester Docks, it became one of the first and largest urban regeneration projects in the United Kingdom fol ...
was opened in 2000 at a cost of £106 million; named after him, the gallery houses 55 of his paintings and 278 drawings – the world's largest collection of his work – with up to 100 on display. In January 2005, a statue of him was unveiled in Mottram in Longdendale 100 yards away from his home from 1948 until his death in 1976. The statue has been a target for vandals since it was unveiled. In 2006 the
Lowry Centre in Salford hosted a contemporary dance performance inspired by his work.
To mark the centenary of his birth in 1987, Royston Futter, director of the L. S. Lowry Centenary Festival, on behalf of the
City of Salford and the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
commissioned the
Northern Ballet Theatre
Northern Ballet, formerly Northern Ballet Theatre, is a dance company based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, with a strong repertoire in theatrical dance productions where the emphasis is on story telling as well as classical ballet. The company ...
and
Gillian Lynne
Dame Gillian Barbara Lynne (née Pyrke; 20 February 1926 – 1 July 2018) was an English ballerina, dancer, choreographer, actress, and theatre-television director, noted for her theatre choreography associated with two of the longest-runnin ...
to create a dance drama in his honour. ''A Simple Man'' was choreographed and directed by Lynne, with music by
Carl Davis
Carl Davis, (born October 28, 1936) is an American-born conductor and composer who has lived in the United Kingdom since 1961.
He has written music for more than 100 television programmes, but is best known for creating music to accompany si ...
and starred
Christopher Gable
Christopher Michael Gable, CBE (13 March 194023 October 1998) was an English ballet dancer, choreographer and actor.
Life and career
Dance career
Born in London, Gable studied at the Royal Ballet School, joining the Sadler's Wells Royal ...
and
Moira Shearer
Moira Shearer King, Lady Kennedy (17 January 1926 – 31 January 2006), was an internationally renowned Scottish ballet dancer and actress. She was famous for her performances in Powell and Pressburger's '' The Red Shoes'' (1948) and '' The Ta ...
(in her last dance role). It was broadcast on BBC, for which it won a
BAFTA award as the best arts programme in 1988, and also performed live on stage in November 1987. Further performances were held in London at
Sadler's Wells
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue in Clerkenwell, London, England located on Rosebery Avenue next to New River Head. The present-day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500-seat ...
in 1988, and again in 2009.
In February 2011 a bronze statue of Lowry was installed in the basement of his favourite pub, Sam's Chop House.
In 2013 a retrospective was held at the
Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, his first there. In 2014 his first solo exhibition outside the UK was held in
Nanjing
Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...
, China. One of the '
houses
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...
' at
Wellacre Academy
Wellacre Academy (simply referred to as Wellacre and officially Wellacre Technology Academy, formerly Wellacre Technology College and Urmston Wellacre County Secondary School) is an 11–16 Single-sex education, boys, secondary school with Acad ...
in Manchester is named after him.
Awards and honours
![L](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/L.S._Lowry_01.JPG)
Lowry was awarded an honorary
Master of Arts
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Th ...
degree by the
University of Manchester
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity
, established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univ ...
in 1945, and
Doctor of Letters
Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Docto ...
in 1961. In April 1955 Lowry was elected as an Associate Member of the
Royal Academy of Arts and in April 1962 became a full
Royal Academician
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
.
At the end of December of the same year his membership status evolved to that of Senior Academician having reached the age of 75.
He was given the freedom of the city of Salford in 1965.
In 1975 he was awarded two honorary Doctor of Letters degrees by the Universities of
Salford
Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...
and
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
. In 1964, the art world celebrated his 77th birthday with an exhibition of his work and that of 25 contemporary artists who had submitted tributes at Monk's Hall Museum,
Eccles.
The Hallé
The Hallé is an English symphony orchestra based in Manchester, England. It supports a choir, youth choir, youth training choir, children's choir and a youth orchestra, and releases its recordings on its own record label, though it has occasiona ...
orchestra performed a concert in his honour and Prime Minister
Harold Wilson used Lowry's painting ''The Pond'' as his official Christmas card. Lowry's painting ''Coming Out of School'' was depicted on a postage stamp of highest denomination in a series issued by the Post Office depicting great British artists in 1968.
Lowry twice declined appointment to the
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
: as an Officer (OBE) in 1955, and as a Commander (CBE) in 1961, Lowry saying "There seemed little point.. once mother was dead" (as seen in the end credits of the movie
Mrs Lowry and son).
He turned down a
knighthood
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the ...
in 1968, and appointments to the
Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 1972 and 1976.
He holds the record for the most honours declined.
Quotations
![Going to Work - L S Lowry](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Going_to_Work_-_L_S_Lowry.jpg)
* On the industrial landscape
** "We went to Pendlebury in 1909 from a residential side of Manchester, and we didn't like it. My father wanted to go to get near a friend for business reasons. We lived next door, and for a long time my mother never got to like it, and at first I disliked it, and then after about a year or so I got used to it, and then I got absorbed in it, then I got infatuated with it. Then I began to wonder if anyone had ever done it. Seriously, not one or two, but seriously; and it seemed to me by that time that it was a very fine industrial subject matter. And I couldn't see anybody at that time who had done it – and nobody had done it, it seemed."
** "Most of my land and townscape is composite. Made up; part real and part imaginary ... bits and pieces of my home locality. I don't even know I'm putting them in. They just crop up on their own, like things do in dreams."
* On his style
** "I wanted to paint myself into what absorbed me ... Natural figures would have broken the spell of it, so I made my figures half unreal. Some critics have said that I turned my figures into puppets, as if my aim were to hint at the hard economic necessities that drove them. To say the truth, I was not thinking very much about the people. I did not care for them in the way a social reformer does. They are part of a private beauty that haunted me. I loved them and the houses in the same way: as part of a vision.
** "I am a simple man, and I use simple materials:
ivory black
Bone char ( lat, carbo animalis) is a porous, black, granular material produced by charring animal bones. Its composition varies depending on how it is made; however, it consists mainly of tricalcium phosphate (or hydroxyapatite) 57–80%, calci ...
,
vermilion
Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color, color family, and pigment most often made, since antiquity until the 19th century, from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide, which is toxic) and its corresponding color. It i ...
,
prussian blue
Prussian blue (also known as Berlin blue, Brandenburg blue or, in painting, Parisian or Paris blue) is a dark blue pigment produced by oxidation of ferrous ferrocyanide salts. It has the chemical formula Fe CN)">Cyanide.html" ;"title="e(Cyani ...
,
yellow ochre
Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...
,
flake white and no medium. That's all I've ever used in my paintings. I like oils ... I like a medium you can work into over a period of time."
* On painting his "Seascapes"
** "It's the battle of life – the turbulence of the sea ... I have been fond of the sea all my life, how wonderful it is, yet how terrible it is. But I often think ... what if it suddenly changed its mind and didn't turn the tide? And came straight on? If it didn't stay and came on and on and on and on ... That would be the end of it all."
* On art
** "You don't need brains to be a painter, just feelings."
** "I am not an artist. I am a man who paints."
** "If people call me a Sunday painter, I'm a Sunday painter who paints every day of the week."
Works
Lowry's work is held in many public and private collections. The largest collection is held by
Salford City Council
Salford City Council is the local authority of the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England. It is a metropolitan borough council, one of ten in Greater Manchester and one of 36 in the metropolitan counties of England, and provides the maj ...
and displayed at The Lowry. Its collection has about 400 works. X-ray analyses have revealed hidden figures under his drawings – the "Ann" figures. ''Going to the Match'' is owned by the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) and is displayed at The Lowry along with a preparatory pencil sketch.
The
Tate Gallery
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
in London owns 23 works. The City of Southampton owns ''The Floating Bridge'', ''The Canal Bridge'' and ''An Industrial Town''. His work is featured at
MOMA, in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. The
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu
The Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, commonly known as the Christchurch Art Gallery, is the public art gallery of the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. It has its own substantial art collection and also presents a programme of New ...
in
Christchurch
Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...
, New Zealand has ''Factory at Widnes'' (1956) in its collection. The painting was one of the gallery's most important acquisitions of the 1950s and remains the highlight of its collection of modern British art.
In the early days of his career Lowry was a member of the Manchester Group of Lancashire artists, exhibiting with them at
Margo Ingham's Mid-Day Studios in Manchester. He made a small painting of the Mid-Day Studios which is in the collection of the Manchester City Art Gallery.
During his life Lowry made about 1,000 paintings and over 8,000 drawings.
Selected paintings
* 1920 ''St Augustine's church''
* 1928 Irk Place
* 1935 ''The Fever Van''
* 1936 ''Laying a Foundation Stone'' — the mayor of
Swinton and Pendlebury, laying a foundation stone in
Clifton
* 1938 ''A Cricket Match'' — set to be auctioned during the
2019 Cricket World Cup
The 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup was the 12th Cricket World Cup, a quadrennial One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament contested by men's national teams and organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was hosted between 30 May ...
* 1941 ''Houses on a Hill''
* 1943 ''A Fylde Farm'' — collected by
Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and hung at
Clarence House
Clarence House is a royal residence on The Mall in the City of Westminster, London. It was built in 1825–1827, adjacent to St James's Palace, for the Duke of Clarence, the future king William IV.
Over the years, it has undergone much exten ...
* 1943 ''Going To Work'' — painted as a
war artist and in the collection of the
Imperial War Museum.
* 1945 ''V.E. Day''
* 1946 ''Good Friday, Daisy Nook'' — sold in 2007 for £3.8 million (then record price for a Lowry)
[''Daily Telegraph'', 31 January 2011, p.8]
* 1947 ''A River Bank'' — bought in 1951 by
Bury Council
Bury Metropolitan Borough Council is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Bury in Greater Manchester, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of ten in Greater Manchester and one of 36 in the metropolitan counties of E ...
for £150 and controversially sold in 2006, for £1.25 million at
Christie's, by the
Metropolitan Borough of Bury
The Metropolitan Borough of Bury is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester in North West England, just north of Manchester, to the east of Bolton and west of Rochdale. The borough is centred around the town of Bury but also includes othe ...
, towards funding a £10 million budget deficit
* 1947 ''Iron Works''
* 1947 ''Cranes and Ships, Glasgow Docks'' — acquired by
Glasgow City Council at
Christie's in November 2005 for £198,400, presently on display at the
Kelvin Hall, it was bought specifically for display in the new
Riverside Museum
The Riverside Museum (formerly known as the Glasgow Museum of Transport) is a museum in Glasgow, housed in a building at Pointhouse Quay in the Glasgow Harbour regeneration district of Glasgow, Scotland. The building opened in June 2011, winnin ...
* 1949 ''Agricultural fair, Mottram-in-Longdendale''
* 1949 ''The Cripples'' - features number of disabled people in a park, including Lowry as a disabled person (centre). The people are a mixture of imaginary and real people. For example, it is believed that a man known locally known as 'Johnny on wheels' is depicted to the right.
* 1949 ''The Football Match'' — not seen in public for two decades before May 2011 when offered for sale at
Christie's;
later sold for £5.6 million, a record price for a Lowry painting.
* 1949 ''The regatta''
* 1950 ''The Pond'' — the image was used as a Christmas card by
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
Harold Wilson in 1964
* 1952 ''Ancoats Hospital Outpatients Hall'' — a rare internal scene, showing
Ancoats Hospital and given to The Whitworth Gallery in 1975.
* 1953 ''Football Ground'' — fans converging on
Bolton Wanderers's old
football ground
Burnden Park
Burnden Park was the home of English football club Bolton Wanderers who played home games there between 1895 and 1997. As well as hosting the 1901 FA Cup Final replay, it was the scene in 1946 of one of the greatest disasters in English footba ...
; painted for a competition run by
the Football Association
The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world a ...
, it was later renamed ''Going to the Match'' and was bought by the
Professional Footballers' Association
The Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) is the trade union for professional association footballers in England and Wales. Founded in 1907, it is the world's oldest professional sport trade union, and has over 5,000 members.
The aims of ...
for a record £1.9 million in 1999.
* 1954 ''Piccadilly Gardens'', a view of the former sunken gardens in
Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, now in
Manchester Art Gallery
Manchester Art Gallery, formerly Manchester City Art Gallery, is a publicly owned art museum on Mosley Street in Manchester city centre. The main gallery premises were built for a learned society in 1823 and today its collection occupies three ...
collection
* 1955 ''A Young Man''
* 1955 ''Industrial Landscape''
* 1956 ''Fairground at Daisy Nook''
* 1960 ''Old church and steps''
Drawings
* 1924 ''View from a window of the Royal Technical College''
* 1924 ''The Flat Iron Market''
* 1928 ''Newton Mill and bowling green''
* 1930 ''Swinton Industrial Schools''
* 1936 ''Dewars Lane'' (
Dewars Lane is now part of the Lowry Trail in
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick-upon-Tweed (), sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England. The 2011 United Kingdom census reco ...
)
* 1942 ''A Bit of Wenlock Edge''
* 1947 ''Figures in lane''
* 1945? ''
St Luke's Church, Old Street, London''
* 1953 ''Agecroft regatta''
Stolen Lowry works
Five Lowry art works were stolen from the Grove Fine Art Gallery in
Cheadle Hulme
Cheadle Hulme () is a suburb in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England,. Historically in Cheshire, it is south-west of Stockport and south-east of Manchester. It lies in the Ladybrook Valley, on the Cheshire Pla ...
,
Stockport on 2 May 2007. The most valuable were ''The Viaduct'', estimated value of £700,000 and ''The Tanker Entering the Tyne'', which is valued at over £500,000. ''The Surgery'', ''The Bridge at Ringley'' and ''The Street Market'' were also stolen. The paintings were later found in a house in
Halewood
Halewood is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley in Merseyside, England. It lies near the city of Liverpool's southeastern boundary, bordered by the suburbs of Netherley, Hunt's Cross and Woolton.
Historically a part of Lancashire, ...
near
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
. Only one of the four robbers was caught and convicted; two other men were later convicted for possession of the stolen works.
A further "The Skater" a pencil drawing has never been returned although the gallery owner was taken to court found guilty but declared himself bankrupt leaving the owner, Arnold Monk without the drawing he had lent for display.
Attributed works in 2015
In July 2015 three works – ''Lady with Dogs'', ''Darby and Joan'' and ''Crowd Scene'' – featured in the
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
series ''
Fake or Fortune?
''Fake or Fortune?'' is a BBC One documentary television series which examines the provenance and attribution of notable artworks. Since the first series aired in 2011, ''Fake or Fortune?'' has drawn audiences of up to 5 million viewers in t ...
''. The programme enlisted the help of various experts to determine whether the paintings were genuine or forgeries. The works in question had been bought in the 1960s by a
Cheshire businessman, Gerald Ames, but their
provenance was poor, and it was noted that Lowry was "probably the most faked British artist, his deceptively simple style of painting making him a soft target for forgers". All three works were judged to be genuine by a panel of experts, and the total value of the paintings was estimated to be in excess of £200,000.
The programme also revealed that while Lowry often claimed to use only five colours (lead white, ivory black, vermillion, Prussian blue and yellow ochre), Lowry was photographed in his studio with titanium white and zinc white stored under his table which he also applied onto his work. The usage of other paints became helpful when determining that the above works were genuine.
Discovered work
''The Mill, Pendlebury'', a painting never publicly exhibited or featured in any book, was found in the estate of
Leonard D. Hamilton, a British-American researcher, after his death in 2019. Hamilton was a Manchester Grammar School boy who studied at
Balliol College, Oxford, and
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...
, before moving to the US in 1949. The work was sold, at
Christie's modern British art auction, with an estimate is £700,000 to £1 million. The work sold on 21 January 2020, to a private collector, for £2.65 million.
Art market
In March 2014 fifteen of Lowry's works, from the A.J. Thompson Collection, were auctioned at
Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
in London; the total sale estimate of £15 million was achieved, even though two paintings failed to reach their reserve price and were withdrawn. Thompson, owner of the ''Salford Express'', collected only Lowry paintings, starting in 1982. The auction included the paintings ''Peel Park, Salford'' and ''Piccadilly Circus, London'', Lowry's most expensive painting at auction to date, which fetched £5.6 million in 2011 but only £5.1 million in 2014. Lowry painted very few London scenes, and only two depict
Piccadilly Circus.
In popular culture
* In January 1968, rock band
Status Quo paid tribute to Lowry in their first hit single "
Pictures of Matchstick Men
"Pictures of Matchstick Men" is the first hit single by Status Quo, released on 5 January 1968.
The Status Quo version
The song reached number 7 in the British charts, number 8 in Canada, and number 12 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, becoming th ...
".
* In 1978,
Brian and Michael
Brian and Michael are a British music duo best known for their 1978 UK number one hit single, " Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs". Without further chart entries, they remain one-hit wonders in the UK. They comprise two members: Mic ...
reached number one in the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
with the tribute single "
Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs
"Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs (Lowry's Song)" is a folk song by English duo Brian and Michael. It was released as their first single in late 1977 on Pye Records, and is from their 1978 debut album, ''The Matchstalk Men''. The song re ...
".
* Manchester rock band
Oasis released a music video for the song "
The Masterplan", to promote their 2006 compilation album ''
Stop the Clocks'', using animation in the style of his paintings. The video follows the band in many famous Lowry scenes, including ''Man Lying On A Wall'' and ''Fairground At Daisy Nook'', but also includes quirky modern-day additions such as a cars and a
satellite dish.
* In August 2010, the play ''Figures Half Unreal'' was performed by the Brass Bastion theatre company in
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick-upon-Tweed (), sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England. The 2011 United Kingdom census reco ...
where Lowry was a regular visitor.
* On 1 November 2012,
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
celebrated his 125th birthday with a
Google Doodle
A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running an ...
.
* Lowry features in the chorus of the
Manic Street Preachers
Manic Street Preachers, also known simply as the Manics, are a Welsh rock band formed in Blackwood in 1986. The band consists of cousins James Dean Bradfield (lead vocals, lead guitar) and Sean Moore (drums, percussion, soundscapes), plus ...
' song "30-Year War" on their 2013 album ''
Rewind the Film
''Rewind the Film'' is the eleventh studio album by Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers. It was recorded in 2013 and released on 16 September 2013 by record label Columbia. The sound is very different from previous records and is ...
'':
* The 2019 film ''
Mrs Lowry & Son'', directed by
Adrian Noble
Adrian Keith Noble (born 19 July 1950) is a theatre director, and was also the artistic director and chief executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1990 to 2003.
Education and career
Noble was born in Chichester, Sussex, England. After le ...
and starring
Vanessa Redgrave
Dame Vanessa Redgrave (born 30 January 1937) is an English actress and activist. Throughout her career spanning over seven decades, Redgrave has garnered numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Television Award, tw ...
and
Timothy Spall
Timothy Leonard Spall (born 27 February 1957) is an English actor and presenter. He became a household name in the UK after appearing as Barry Spencer Taylor in the 1983 ITV comedy-drama series '' Auf Wiedersehen, Pet''.
Spall performed in '' ...
, depicts the fraught relationship between Lowry and his elderly bed-ridden mother between 1934 and 1939.
* ''Sunday painter'' by Dutch band
Nits
The National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are the central government-owned-public technical institutes under the ownership of Ministry of Education, Government of India. They are governed by the National Institutes of Technology, Science ...
is a song inspired by Lowry.
References
Sources
* Andrews, Allen. ''The Life of L. S. Lowry, A Biography'' (London: Jupiter Books, 1977)
*
Clarke, Hilda Margery. ''Lowry Himself'' (Southampton: The First Gallery, 1987)
* Howard, Michael. ''Lowry — A Visionary Artist'' (Lausanne, Switzerland: Acatos, 1999)
* Leber, Michael and Sandling, Judith (eds). ''L. S. Lowry'' (Oxford: Phaidon, 1987)
* Leber, Michael and Sandling, Judith. ''Lowry's City: A Painter and His Locale'' (London: Lowry House, 2001)
*
Levy, Nichael. ''The Paintings of L. S. Lowry: Oils and Watercolours'' (London: Jupiter Books, 1975)
* Levy, Michael. ''The Drawings of L. S. Lowry: Public and Private'' (London: Jupiter Books, 1976)
* Lowry, L. S. ''L. S. Lowry, R. A.: A Selection of Masterpieces'' (London: Crane Kalman Gallery, 1994)
* McLean, David. ''L. S. Lowry'' (London: The Medici Society, 1978)
* Marshall, Tilly. ''Life with Lowry'' (London: Hutchinson, 1981)
*
Rhode, Shelley. ''A Private View of L. S. Lowry'' (London: Collins, 1979)
* Rohde, Shelley. ''The Lowry Lexicon — An A–Z of L. S. Lowry'' (Salford Quays: Lowry Press, 1999)
* Sieja, Doreen. ''The Lowry I Knew'' (London: Jupiter Books, 1983)
*
Spalding, Julian. ''Lowry'' (Oxford: Phaidon, New York: Dutton, 1979)
*
Timperley, W. H. (will illustrations by L. S. Lowry), ''A Cotswold Book'' (London: Jonathan Cape, 1931)
* MacDougall, Sarah. ''Refiguring the 50s : Joan Eardley, Sheila Fell, Eva Frankfurther, Josef Herman, L S Lowry'' (Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, 2014)
External links
*
Work by LS Lowry: PeopleWork by LS Lowry: Places
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowry, L. S.
1887 births
1976 deaths
20th-century English painters
Artists from Lancashire
Alumni of Manchester Metropolitan University
Alumni of the University of Salford
British war artists
English male painters
English people of Northern Ireland descent
Landscape artists
Modern painters
Naïve painters
People from Pendlebury
People from Stretford
Royal Academicians
World War II artists
Members of the Royal Society of British Artists
English landscape painters
Burials at Southern Cemetery, Manchester
20th-century English male artists