A Football Match L S Lowry

L.S. LOWRY, A FOOTBALL MATCH, SIGNED OFFSET LITHOGRAPH, EDITION OF 850

Football was one of Lowry’s most pivotal passions and artistic subjects, reportedly having been a Man City supporter. The Football Match is one of many studies on the game of football. Defining characteristics of Lowry’s style of realism are the mix of smoky industrialism and the modern cityscape, as well as the human and almost intimate spectacle of sport. In Lowry’s series on football, the figures, albeit still stick-like and stylised, are nonetheless more active than in his cityscapes and industrial studies where they wander indifferently across the scenery. In this drawing the players converge on a ball, framed by the goals, the fence and Lowry’s favoured Mancunian skyline. The players are captured mid- movement and Lowry clearly puts emphasis on their clothing through his usage of colour, making them stand out. Beyond them the picture disappears into a haze of urbanity that shrouds factories and churches alike. 

Discover more L.S. Lowry artworks. 

ABOUT L.S. LOWRY

L.S. Lowry is a much-loved British painter known for pictures that capture urban life in industrial north west England, most notably during the 1920s. Born in 1887 in Stretford, Lancashire, Laurence Stephen Lowry later moved to Pendlebury near Manchester where he lived and worked for over 40 years. The area, which he at first detested, was covered in factories and cotton mills that Lowry would soon obsessively depict. His fascination with the industrial landscapes and the people that inhabited them was inspired by a missed train. Standing on the platform at Pendlebury station, Lowry would later write of the view of the Acme Spinning Company’s mill, saying “I watched this scene – which I’d look at many times without seeing – with rapture.”