L S Lowry

Lowry’s earliest paintings bear a significantly different tone to his later, more well known, urban scenes. In fact, during his training, Lowry’s paintings were far more impressionistic and dark in appearance, with his first recorded painting Still Life (1906) demonstrating this. Lowry also created many portraits during his early practice, including Portrait Of The Artist’s Mother (1912) and Portrait Of The Artist’s Father (1910) alongside many of the artist himself.

His works from 1930-1938 saw his rise to prominence as an artist, and consisted of his characteristic industrial scenes. It was during this period that one of his earlier studies of the Ancoat area, A Street Scene, (St. Simon’s Church,) (1928) was the first of his works purchased by the Salford Museum and Art Gallery.

Lowry’s artistic style was distinct. The use of simplified perspective, block colours and two dimensional ‘matchstick’ figures all contributed to the misconception that he was self-taught, despite his extensive artistic training. Lowry’s style remained naive and straightforward, with a limited colour palette. He claimed: 'I am a simple man, I use simple materials,' and we can see this in his predominant use of only five colours; ivory black, vermillion, prussian blue, yellow ochre and flake white.

After being told by one of his tutors in 1915 that his paintings were too dark, Lowry experimented with painting directly onto a pure white background, which then became standard practice for him throughout his career. Hence, the almost clinical brightness of his backgrounds even when depicting industrial urban landscapes.

Lowry remained employed as a rent collector and clerk for the majority of his working life, choosing to paint during the evenings. Called a 'Sunday Painter' by critics, in part due to this practice, but also due to his painterly style, Lowry, unperturbed, countered: 'I am a Sunday painter who paints every day of the week.' During World War Two, he volunteered as a fire watcher three nights a week in Manchester, and the damage done to the city as a result of the Blitz provided ample inspiration for some of his later works. Similarly, his love of football and dedication to Manchester City was reflected in his various studies of football matches and fans.

To this day, Lowry holds the record for most rejections of British Honours, (five times) including a knighthood which he was offered in 1968. He told Prime Minister at the time, Harold Wilson: 'All my life I have felt most strongly against social distinction of any kind.'

During the 1960s and 70s, Lowry, now an established artist, produced limited edition prints of his most famous works for commercial sale. These prints were hugely successful and continue to gather popular momentum, with many bringing in £1000 - £5000 at auction in the last ten years.

His more famous oil paintings, such as The Football Match (1949) sold for £5.6 million in 2011, marking a new record and a long-lost Lowry painting, titled The Mill, Pendlebury (1943) was found for the first time in 2019 and sold for £2.5 million the following year.