Why are the Town and Street Scenes important?

Compared to his more famous industrial landscapes, these depictions strike in their familiar intimacy. Rather than in his large landscape industrial scenes, it is in these depictions that Lowry’s urban modernism best comes to life through the use of close-up techniques, as in The Arrest, that direct the viewer’s attention towards the way the city is inhabited by its citizens. In this sense, the scenes are evocative of Henri Lefevbre’s famous statement: “it is in its streets that the life of the large industrial city is at its most original and authentic”. For his capacity at depicting a form of cityism, art critic John Berger praised Lowry and claimed he was amongst the few painters who managed to capture on canvas or print different “ways of seeing” and living the urban landscape.

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How can I sell my Town and Street Scene?

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Town And Street Scenes by L. S. Lowry Background & Meaning

Town
And Street Scenes

This collection of L.S. Lowry's Town and Street Scenes prints offer a sentimentally specific insight into British industrial modern life in the North. Yet Lowry's depictions are not wholly topographical and are instead "composite […] part real and part imaginary ... bits and pieces of my home locality".

Meaning & Analysis

As captured in his Town and Street Scenes prints, Lowry’s paintings offer a unique, sentimental insight into British industrial modern life. Comprising pieces like Burford Church, The Football Match and Berwick Upon Tweed, Lowry’s representations of city life can offer an intimate look into the social reality of North British industrial cities.

While each depiction refers to a single city that the artist visited throughout his lifetime, these artworks fascinate the contemporary viewer in their oscillation between specificity and universality. While individual elements are used to signal and signpost a specific place, Lowry’s depictions and his ‘stylised realism’ suggest that the ambition behind the pieces is that of representing the entire reality of modern industrial life and the commonality of experiences shared by the laborious working-class across the North. As Lowry admitted, "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.” That is, Lowry’s pieces oscillate between what has been called his “concern for the local” and a universalising ambition of synthesising the differential experiences of different people in a singular experience defined by the industrial landscape.

Compared to his more famous industrial landscapes, these depictions strike in their familiar intimacy. Rather than in his large landscape industrial scenes, it is in these depictions that Lowry’s urban modernism best comes to life through the use of close-up techniques, as in The Arrest, that direct the viewer’s attention towards the way the city is inhabited by its citizens. In this sense, the scenes are evocative of Henri Lefevbre’s famous statement: “it is in its streets that the life of the large industrial city is at its most original and authentic”. For his capacity at depicting a form of cityism, art critic John Berger praised Lowry and claimed he was amongst the few painters who managed to capture on canvas or print different “ways of seeing” and living the urban landscape.
Attesting to the art historical and social relevance of these paintings, an exhibition entitled Lowry And The Painting Of Modern Life held at Tate Britain in 2013 and curated by Anne Wagner and T. J. Clark focused on contextualising Lowry’s cityscapes within broader art-historical traditions, proposing that the artist’s works be analysed side by side with French Impressionism to map their similarities.
Through their use of muted colours and match-like figures, these artworks constitute an immense legacy and historical document left by the artist to his audience and continue to offer art critics and collectors new ways of thinking about a pivotal yet often understated moment in the history and construction of modern England.
If you're looking to sell art by L S Lowry, click the link and we can help. We employ a number of techniques and practices in order to give a realistic and achievable valuation on any art listed on myartbroker.com. We analyse the demand for the work in question, take into consideration previous sales and auction valuations, we assess the current gallery valuation and monitor the current deals taking place via MyArtBroker every day. We regularly advise sellers on a price bracket for their artwork completely free of charge.

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Meaning & Analysis

Why are the Town and Street Scenes important?

How do I buy a Town and Street scene?

How can I sell my Town and Street Scene?

Notable Collections

Google reviews

4.9

tondeggi

Alexa Easterby

Charles Ensor

Chris McGlinchey

Alexa Easterby

Charles Ensor

About

Contact

Town
And Street Scenes

Sell Your Art
with Us