L.S. Lowry R.B.A., R.A.
Paintings
"Four rare works by renowned British artist LS Lowry have been discovered at a family home in Harrogate.
First class: This picture, originally bought by the anonymous couple from LS Lowry himself, was sold for £165,000
One of the paintings has been previously unseen, were bought by a husband and wife 45 years ago before Lowry became well known. The family hung the inexpensive paintings on the walls of their home , and saw the reputation of the Lancashire artist grow. After they both died within the last three years, the artwork passed down to their four children, who stored them in a cupboard for safe-keeping until they decided to sell them.
One of the paintings, of a man posting a letter in a red postbox that was bought directly from Lowry in 1965 and sold recently for £165,000. The oil painting has hardly ever been seen before as it was bought by the couple two years after it was painted. Another, of a man pulling a cart, sold for £55,000 while one showing a mother pushing a pram through a crowd of people made £64,000.
'MATCHSTICK MEN' PAINTER
LS Lowry (1887-1976) lived in Greater Manchester, and became famous for painting industrial landscapes. He is known for his distinctive 'matchstick men' style, which depicts figures with thin bodies and large heads. Lowry claimed to be a 'simple man' who could not understand modern art, but is now regarded as a major artist, with much of his work exhibited in a purpose-built museum in Salford. He was a notoriously private man who hated publicity, and was secretive about his job at the Pall Mall Property Company, where he worked for decades to support his artistic career.
'Valuable' A painting showing a mother pushing a pram through a crowd of people made a hefty £64,000 - while even a basic pencil drawing reached £34,000
'When they bought the paintings, people in the art world knew who Lowry was, but it was a few years before he came to public attention.
'They spent their money very wisely on acquiring what could prove to be a very good investment.
'The paintings hung on the wall of their home in Harrogate but they have been stored in a cupboard since they both died.
'The Lowry works haven't been seen for more than 40 years.
'They are utterly fabulous, especially the one of the man posting the letter which is stunning due to its simplicity and contrasting colours.'
The sale comes at a buoyant time for the art market, which is seen as a relatively safe place to invest money during this period of turmoil in other markets.
'Playful' A man pulling a cart sold for £55,000.
Lowry's distinctive style is well known now,
but when these paintings were bought he was almost unknown.
Even a basic-looking pencil drawing of Lowry was sold for £34,000.
With all the fees added on, the total price paid for the works of art was more than £375,000.
Laurence Stephen Lowry did not like to think of himself as an amateur artist. People would occassionally accuse him of being self-taught and untutored. he commented, "Started at fifteen years old. Don't know why?" My aunt said "You are no good for anything else, so you might as well go to Art School." LSLowry began evening classes in fine art and free-hand art drawing during 1905. Later studying in both the Manchester Academy of Fine Art and The Salford Royal Technical College at Peel Park. School records show that Lowry attended art classes during the 1920's. Lowry had learnt from teachers, people such as the Frenchman Adolphe Valette. This French Impressionist artist had made a big impact on the art world. He saw from exhibitions in Manchester how the current trends in modern art were changing, and had great affection for Pre-Raphaelite art, by artists such as Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown. A naive Sunday artist LS Lowry certainly was not. Lowry strove for a distinctive way of painting and drawing, and for a subject matter Lowry could make unique.
Lowry eventually chose the view from the Technical College window. Industrial scenes of Salford and Manchester, rather than that of a model posing.
Throughout the early years L.S.Lowry lived in Victoria Park, the suburbs of Manchester. Due to lack of money
the family moved to Station Road, Pendlebury.
There, the tree lined streets changed to factory chimneys. Lowry recalled "At first I detested it, and then,
after years, became pretty interested in it, eventually obsessed by it".
he saw the subjects for his paintings all around him. In Lowry's later life, L.S.L. recalled a particular event.
"One day after missing a train from Pendlebury (a local town) I had ignored for seven years, and on leaving
the station, saw the Acme Spinning Company's mill.
The huge black framework of rows of yellow lit windows standing up against the sad, damp charged afternoon sky.
The mill was turning out. "Gazing at this scene, which I'd looked at many times without seeing, with rapture."
A writer in The Guardian newspaper, Bernard Taylor, recognised the unique quality of Lowry paintings, when he reviewed an early exhibition. "Mr Laurence S Lowry has a very interesting and individual outlook. Lowry subjects are Manchester and Lancashire street scenes, interpreted with technical means as yet imperfect, but with real imagination. We hear a great deal nowadays about recovering the simplicity of vision of primitives in art. These pictures are authentically primitive, the real thing not an artificially cultivated likeness to it. The problems of representation are solved not by reference to established conventions, but by sheer determination to express what the artist has felt. Whether the result is according to rule or not..."
Lowry worked as rent collector for the Pall Mall Property Company, prefering to keep the work secret. Lowry did not want people to think of him as a part-time artist. The job led to Lowry walking all over the city providing L.S.Lowry with many sights and experiences. Children playing in the streets, people returning from work, going off to work, gossip on the front steps, incidents, market places and Whit - processions. But all this changed, the blitz and rebuilding, slum clearances and new housing, changed the face of the city Lowry had observed so well. "I saw the industrial scene and was affected by it. Trying to draw it all the time and trying to express the industrial scene as well as possible. It wasn't easy, well, a camera could have done the scene straight off".
Lowry felt that drawings were as hard to do as paintings. Working the surface of the drawings by smudging, erasing and rubbing the pencil lines on the paper to build the atmosphere of the drawing. This artist would often make quick sketches on the spot on whatever paper he had in his pockets. L.S.Lowry carefully composed his pictures in a painting room at home and took great care over placing each figure. Late in life he would sit before a canvas or board on his easel and not know what was going to be in the painting until he started working. He called them "dreamscapes". Bernard Taylor made the suggestion that helped Lowry achieve the stark figures and the pallor of the industrial sky that he desired. Taylor suggested Lowry painted on a pure white background. He experimented with layers of white paint on boards, leaving them for a time until the surface became creamy.
LS Lowry used a very basic range of colours, which he mixed on his palette and painted on the white background. "I am a simple man, and use simple materials: ivory, black, vermilion (red), Prussian blue, yellow ochre, flake white and no medium (e.g. linseed oil). That's all I've ever used in my paintings. I like oils... I like a medium you can work into over a period of time". Looking closely at the surface of a Lowry painting shows us the variety of ways he worked the paint with brushes (using both ends), with his fingers and with sticks or a nail. Some paintings are painted over the suface of other images. The 1938 painting Head of a Man (Man with Red Eyes) when x-rayed showed a female portrait and possibly a self-portrait underneath. Someone once asked,"What do you do with your old suits?" "Wear them", came the reply! Lowry certainly wore them for work, wiping the brushes on his lapels and sleeves.
In 1932 the father of Lowry died . For the next seven years, his 73 year old mother became 'bed fast' and completely ruled the life of Lowry. After she died in 1939, Lowry painted "The Bedroom Pendlebury" - in memory of those long hours he spent there. Demanding a great deal of his attention, Lowry would usually only manage to arrive at his studio after dark. "My mother did not understand my art, but she understood me and that was enough" Lowry said.
These were years of isolation and growing despair, reflected in the paintings of Lowry. They depict derelict buildings and wastelands as mirrors of himself. As an official war artist - himself emotionally blitzed - Lowry drew the ruined shells of bombed-out buildings. In 1939, the year Mrs Lowry died - the person he most wanted to please - success came with the first London exhibition. "When the mother of Lowry died, all interest was lost, continuing to paint was the greatest salvation".
Just when this northern artist began to have success, Lowry was moving away from the subjects that everybody wanted him to produce. "If it were not for lonleness, none of my works would have happened". Some of the most powerful paintings by Lowry are deserted landscapes and seascapes. Some of the most difficult pictures to enjoy are of solitary figures and downs and outs. "These people affect me in a way that the industrial scene never did. They are real people, sad people. Sadness attracts me, and there are some very sad things. similar feelings in myself".
Everything came too late for Lowry, but the later years saw the British artist become a popular celebrity. Lowry also became preoccupied about whether his art would last. "Will I live", he asked over and over again, like the art of the Pre-Raphaelites Lowry collected and loved, "I painted from childhood to childhood". Lowry became an old man - often protesting to interviewers that he had "given up, packed it in".
LSLowry died aged 88 in 1976 just months before a retrospective exhibition of his paintings opened at the Royal Academy. It broke all attendance records for a twentieth century artist. Critical opinion about Lowry remains divided to this day. Salford Museum & Art Gallery began collecting the artist's work in 1936 and gradually built up the collection which is now at the heart of the award-winning building bearing the artist's name. Celebrating his art and transforming the cityscape again. A small quantity of paintings by the artist l.s. lowry were published as signed limited edition prints. Some of the most well known being, 'Going to the match', Man lying on a wall, Huddersfield, Deal, ferry boats, three cats Alstow, Berwick-on-Tweed, peel park, The two brothers, View of a town, Street scene.
Please take a moment to browse and enjoy the signed limited edition prints and paintings by wildlife artist David Shepherd,
Also the work of Sir William Russell Flint whose paintings and signed limited edition prints are in great demand.
Famous for his portraits of Cecilia, Flint's greastest works illustrate the architecture and landscape throughout rural France
This holiday house near Brantome, in the area of Dordogne is ideally situated to enjoy the France.
The work of Mr L.S. Lowry has become of great artistic and financial importance of recent years. A selection of his signed prints and drawings can be viewed and bought here
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