Critical Review
L. S. Lowry’s lithograph A Northern Town was made towards the end of the artist’s career in 1969. A Northern Town shows a view looking down the street of a small town with many stylised figures dotted throughout the centre of the composition. This is a lithograph of a drawing by Lowry, rendered in black line against the cream paper.
Initially trained under the Impressionist master, Adolphe Valette, Lowry was interested in recording the nuances of everyday life and would sketch during the day to record his observations of the world around him. A Northern Town is one such study, maintaining a sketchy quality as though executed quickly from life. During his prolific career, the artist produced over 8,000 drawings.
This print is exemplary of Lowry’s direct and distinctive style that led art critic Jonathan Jones to name the artist as a ‘modern primitive’. Lowry’s stylised figures form the focal point of A Northern Town and are noted for the way in which they cast no shadows. Perfectly in line with Lowry’s stylised realism that he is so famed for, in this print the figures appear almost like silhouettes, dotted across the scene.
