St Luke’s Church L S Lowry

L.S. LOWRY, ST. LUKE’S CHURCH, LONDON, OFFSET LITHOGRAPH PRINTED IN COLOURS, EDITION OF 850, 1973

The inclusion of ‘London’ in the title of this print is peculiar - while all Lowry’s other churches are in Manchester and the surrounding area, London was far from home for the artist. He claimed he went to London once a month for 50 years, but very little of his artistic work depicts the landscape there. This church was an exception, and in an interview with Edwin Mullens in 1966 he let on what attracted him to it. “I’d been told it had the ugliest spire in the world. So naturally I had to go and look at it.” It is an odd and perhaps telling fact that one of Britain’s best loved artists was a confirmed miserabilist ‘I only deal with poverty; always with gloom. You'll never see a joyous picture of mine.’ Few British artists are as popular and loved as Lowry, which is a testament to the fact that his work seems to transcend the gloom he was attracted to both North and South.

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.” Learn more about L. S. Lowry.