L.S. Lowry | Biography (1887-1976) (Laurence Stephen Lowry) Biography 1 8 8 7 - 1 9 7 6 Laurence Stephen Lowry was born in Rusholme, Manchester, in November 1887, the only child of Irish-born R S Lowry and Elizabeth Lowry (n�e Hobson). He attended a local school in Victoria Park, but took private lessons from William Fitz, before starting work as a clerk for a firm of chartered accountants in 1904 ... more Jan. 17: Added extensive scans and review of L.S. Lowry: A Biography Paperback (1999) Feb. 15: Details and scans added of the Lowry Tate Britain exhibition poster now no longer made. 1 new and sealed one in stock. View here Sept. 13: Details and scans of the Lowry Tate Britain exhibition. View smartphone page here Sept. 13: Scanned an adorable Lowry on general display at Tate Britain. View smartphone page here with amazing paintings from other artist Review. OIL (1925) © ESTATE OF L.S.

LOWRY From 1905-1915 he attended drawing and painting classes at the Municipal College of Art (later Manchester College of Art, and now part of Manchester Metropolitan University), where he was tutored by Adolphe Valette. Lowry moved to Pendlebury in Salford with his parents in 1909, where he was to live for nearly 40 years. During this time he attended art classes at Salford School of Art, developing an interest in the urban and industrial landscape. He exhibited with the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts from 1919, as well as entering paintings in the Paris Salon By the early 1930s he was exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London. He was awarded an honorary MA at Manchester University in 1945, and Doctor of Letters in 1961, elected to the Royal Academy in 1962, and given freedom of the City of Salford in 1965. He lived in Mottram until he died in 1976 - a death marked by unprecedented homage by the 'ordinary people' of Manchester. L.S.

Lowry is unquestionably one of the most celebrated British artists and his unique contribution to recording the period, culture and landscape of industrial Salford and Manchester is without parallel. His work is a most distinctive and comprehensive record of the pre and post World War Two northern industrial town. Many people associate Lowry with �matchstick men�, but he is known to have produced over 10,000 works, ranging from finished oil paintings to hastily drawn sketches. The local industrial scene was his most frequent subject but he also painted seascapes and portraits. He was a great humorist and had intense insight into human nature, characterising it without sentiment. Later in his life he concentrated on producing paintings of figures either singly or in groups, invariably against a white background. He also produced thousand of pencil drawings during his lifetime, these are now very collectable and the best ones are incredibly detailed Lowry died without a registered doctor, leading the galleries a merry dance. Hoping to inherit a few paintings in his will, they courted him in his old age only to find he had left them all to a girl, also called Lowry, who had written him a letter years before, asking how she could become an artist.

Lowry's status as one of the major British artists of the 20th Century was reinforced when the painting Going To The Match was sold at Auction for a record �1.9 million to the Manchester-based Professional Footballers Association. Manchester's premier gallery, The Lowry Centre in Salford Quays, now holds a major collection of his work. BIOG. II Laurence Stephen Lowry was born in Manchester in November 1887, the only child of Irish-born parents. From 1905-1915 L.S. Lowry attended drawing and painting classes at the Municipal College of Art. He moved to Salford with his parents in 1909, where he was to live for nearly 40 years. During this time he attended art classes at Salford School of Art, developing an interest in the urban and industrial landscape. Laurence Stephen Lowry exhibited with the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts from 1919. He exhibited at and was elected to the Royal Academy in 1962, and given freedom of the City of Salford in 1965. L.S.

Lowry is unquestionably one of the most celebrated British artists and his unique contribution to recording the period, culture and landscape of the industrial north is without parallel Among his collectors and admirers is the actor Albert Finney. He grew up in the area and knew the landscapes Lowry painted. TRIVIA Lowry died just a few months before a major exhibition of his work was held at London's Royal Academy. It drew more than 350,000 visitors, breaking all Academy's records. In 1968 he was offered a knighthood but turned it down. He bought paintings by Honore Daumier and Lucian Freud among others, and by Rossetti. The Barbican exhibition in 1988 exhibited some of the deeply private, erotically tinted images that will be seem in the ITV1 documentary Perspectives: Looking For Lowry on Easter Sunday 2011. The documentary will also feature an interview with Carol Ann Lowry. Though not related, she was 13 when her mother suggested she write to the great man for advice on how to become an artist. He was 70. Eventually he replied, formed a friendship that was part uncle and niece, part mentor and pupil.

and in 1976 when he died of pneumonia, aged 88, he bequeathed his entire �300,000 estate to her, together with a substantial collection of hs own paintings - themselves worth a fortune. The �106 million arts centre, The Lowry, opened in Salford Quats in 1999. Tate Britain has 23 Lowrys in its basement! KEY DATES Award - 1975 L.S Lowry was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Salford and the same degree by the University of Liverpool Award - 1967 L. S Lowry's painting- Coming out of school- was the stamp of the highest denomination in a series issued by the Post Office depicting great British artists Award - 1965 He was given freedom of the City Award - 1961 L. S Lowry was awarded an honorary Master of Arts from Doctors of Letters Award - 1945 L.S Lowry was awarded an honorary Master of Arts from the University of Manchester BIOGRAPHICAL CHRONOLOGY OF THE ARTIST 1887 Laurence Stephen Lowry born in Manchester, 1 November.

Only child of R. S. Lowry, an estate agent, and Elizabeth Hobson. The family lived in Rusholme, a suburb of Manchester. 1895-1904 Educated at Victoria Park School, Manchester. On leaving he attended the private painting classes of William Fitz in Moss Side, Manchester. 1904 Joined the firm of This. Aldred & Son, Chartered Accountants, 88 Mosley Street, Manchester, where he worked as a Clerk. 1905-15 Studied drawing and painting at the Muncipal College of Art, Manchester. 1907 Joined the General Accident, Fire & Life Assurance Corporation, 20 Cross Street, Manchester, as a Claims Clerk. 1910 Began work as a Rent Collector and Clerk with The Pall Mall Property Company Ltd., Manchester. 1915-20 Began to develop his interest in the industrial scene. During this period he also attended drawing and painting classes at the Salford School of Art, and continued to do so, infrequently, until 1925. His art school associations thus continued over a period of some twenty years.

1926-30 During this period he exhibited in open exhibitions in Manchester and at the Paris Salon. An Accident was bought by the City Art Gallery, Manchester. This was the first of his paintings to be acquired by a public art gallery. Commissioned to illustrate A Cotswold Book by Harold Timperley (Jonathan Cape, London, 1931). 1932 His father died. First exhibited at the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. First exhibited at the Royal Academy. 1934 Elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists. Lowry with the Stockport Viaduct Six of his paintings were shown in a mixed exhibition at the Arlington Gallery, London. 1938 Chance discovery by A. J. McNeil Reid who saw some of his paintings while visiting the framers, James Bourlet & Sons Ltd. 1939 First one-man exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery. He exhibited there on some thirteen occasions. Dwellings, Ordsall Lane, Salford purchased by the Tate Gallery. In October his mother died. 1941 An exhibition of the artist's work was presented at the City Museum and Art Gallery, Salford.

1943 One-man exhibition at the Bluecoat Chambers, Liverpool. 1945 Made Honorary M.A., University of Manchester. 1948 Elected a member of the London Group. Moes from Pendlebury, Salford, to The Elms, Stalybrudge Road, Mottram-in-Longendale, Cheshire, where he lived until he died. October: one-man exhibition at the Mid-day Studios, Manchester, where he exhibited regularly with the Manchester Group from 1946-1951. 1951 July-August: retrospective exhibition at the City Art Gallery, Salford. 1952 First exhibition at the Crane Gallery, Manchester. This gallery, under the direction of Mr. Andras Kalman, was the first commercial gallery outside London to show Lowry's work. Further exhibitions were held there in 1955 and 1958. Turning into the Crane Kalman Gallery, London, it showed his work on a number of occasions. Lowry is represented in the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Retired on Full Pension from The Pall Mall Company Limited, Manchester, with whom he began work as a Rent Collector and Clerk in 1910. At the time of his retirement he had risen to the rank of Chief Cashier to the firm. 1955 Made an Associate of the Royal Academy. An exhibition of his work held at the Wakefield City Art Gallery. 1959 June-July: retrospective exhibition at the City Art Gallery, Manchester. Exhibited, Robert Osbourne Gallery, New York. 1960 April-May: exhibition of drawings and paintings at the Altrincham Art Gallery. 1961 Made Honoray LL.D., University of Manchester. 1962 Elected Royal Academician. September-October: retrospective exhibition at the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield. 1964 In November, an exhibition in his honour was held at the Monks Hall Museum, Eccles. Twenty-five contemporary artists, including Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Duncan Grant and John Piper, took part. The Halle Orchestra gave a special concert in Manchester to celebrate the occasion of his seventy-seventh birthday. 1965 June: received the Freedom of the City of Salford.

1966-7 Travelling retrospective exhibition organised by the Arts Council of Great Britain visited the Sunderland Art Gallery; the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; The City Art Gallery, Bristol; and the Tate Gallery, London. On 10 July 1967 the G.P.O. issued a Lowry stamp reproducing a mill scene. 1971 Exhibition organised by the Northern Ireland Arts Council in Belfast. From 1971 the artist lived quietly at Mottram making occasional visits to the Seaburn Hotel in Sunderland where he liked to stay for two or three weeks at a time. During this period he painted infrequently and showed mainly at the Royal Academy Summer exhibition, although he ws not represented in the 1975 Exhibition. 1975 Made Hon. D.Lit. by the University of Salford. Made Hon. D.Lit. by the University of Liverpool. 1975 On 23 February, 1976 the artist died at Woods Hospital, Glossop, in his 88th year. Grove Fine Art - Specialists in L. S.

Lowry Contact Us t: 0161 428 4518 | m: 078484 12345 | e: info@grovefineart.co.uk Grove Fine Art has an unrivalled specialist knowledge in L. S. Lowry originals, based upon a long standing family relationship with the Salford artist. This puts Grove Fine Art in a unique position in the art world as our company directors have personal knowledge of Lowry's working methods, source material and background, dating back over 40 years. L. S. Lowry was a frequent visitor to our director's family home in Cheshire on most Saturdays during the 1960's and up to the mid 1970's. During this time Mr George Aird was buying a major proportion of the artist's work directly from Mr Lowry, and this was the part of the childhood environment that Ivan Aird grew up with and gradually developed a life-long passion for the highly distinctive, collectable and Internationally famous artist that Lowry has now become. Top: Ivan Aird, L. S. Lowry, Joyce Aird Left: George Aird, L. S.

Lowry, Ivan Aird 'LS Lowry didn't have any airs or graces' George Aird remembers when LS Lowry was immortalised in bronze in 1975 George Aird remembers when LS Lowry was immortalised in bronze, 1975 Photo: Sefton Samuels frps I was Mr Lowryï¿½s agent, and another client of mine said that a sculptor called Sam Tonkiss, who was relatively well known at the time, would like to make a bust of him. So I asked Mr Lowry if he would sit for it, and he said yes. Mr Tonkiss [right] made the bust in clay over a number of sittings, then sent it off to a factory in Birmingham to be cast in bronze. This photograph was taken at my house in Manchester when Mr Tonkiss showed Mr Lowry the finished bust for the first time. Mr Lowry was very pleased with it, and said so, but I donï¿½t think he would have said anything else.

I remember once I took a picture to show him and he said, 'I donï¿½t care much for that.ï¿½ Then I said that Iï¿½d painted it and he immediately said, 'Oh, that's very, very good.ï¿½ I first met Mr Lowry when he had an exhibition at Salford Art Gallery, and he came up to me and asked me which was my favourite picture. I liked one of the pastels, it was a bit like something by the French Impressionists, and I know when I like a picture because it does something to your insides. I did like his paintings, and over the years I bought them, too. I had three Lowrys at one point ï¿½ there is one on the wall in this picture ï¿½ but Iï¿½ve sold them on now. The last one made quite a lot of money. This picture was taken about a year before he died, and by then he was quite a rich man and a bit of a celebrity, but he didnï¿½t have any airs or graces.

He looks quite smart in the photograph, but when he was painting he used to wipe his hands on his suit and his coat. He kept saying he was going to buy a new suit but he never did when I knew him. We got on very well and I used to visit him at home. His house was a dump ï¿½ it didnï¿½t have hot water or anything ï¿½ but he was happy with it. He had an electric fire in his front room, but it had only one bar working. He used to hold his foot by the bar; once, he burnt the bottom of his slipper. Later somebody fitted a gas fire for him and the whole room was quite warm then. He had a telephone, but you couldnï¿½t ring him ï¿½ so he would ring me twice a week and I used to take him to Stanneylands on the East Lancashire Road for lunch. We would talk about pictures and other artists. My son Ivan was quite small and heï¿½d come with me and have a glass of milk. Mr Lowry always stretched across the table to try and pinch it.

He used to say, 'If we all went to the gents at the same time then we could get out of the window without paying.ï¿½ Not that he ever would. L.S. LOWRY: A Chronology 1887 Born Laurence Stephen Lowry on 1 November at Barrett Street, Manchester, the only child of Robert and Elizabeth 1889 L.S lowry: Artist L. S. Lowry - Early life Lowry was born the only child of Robert Stephen, an Irish-born estate agent, and Elizabeth (nï¿½e Hobson) a concert pianist and piano teacher in the middle class suburb of Victoria Park in Rusholme. His family called him 'Laurie'. It was a difficult birth and his mother, who had been hoping for a girl, was uncomfortable even looking at him at first. Later she expressed her envy of her sister Mary, who had "three splendid daughters" instead of one "clumsy boy". After Lowry's birth his mother's health was too poor for her to continue teaching. She is reported to have been gifted and respected. She was an irritable, nervous woman who had been brought up to expect high standards by her stern father.

Like him she was controlling and intolerant of failure. She used illness as a means of securing the attention and obedience of her mild and affectionate husband and she dominated her son in the same way. Lowry had an unhappy childhood. At school he made few friends and showed no academic aptitude. His father was affectionate towards him but he could not gain the approval that he craved from his mother. L. S. Lowry - Art studies When he reached school-leaving age his vocation was not obvious but an aunt noted that he had been good at drawing ships, so in 1903 his parents enrolled him in private art lessons with Reginald Barber despite his father's completely indifference towards the illustrative arts. A year later, at seventeen, he started work as a clerk with a Manchester chartered accountant. From 1905 he attended evening classes at Manchester College of Art studying classes in freehand drawing, light & shade, preparatory antique and, when his aptitude became apparent, life studies under Pierre Adolphe Valette. He was employed as a clerk for the General Accident Fire and Life Assurance Company in 1907 and he started private art classes with the American portrait painter William Fitz in the same year.

In 1909 his father's business failed and the family had to move to a smaller house at 117 Station Road, Pendlebury, an industrial suburb to the northwest of Salford. Lowry became a rent collector for the Pall Mall Property Company in 1910. It is at this time that he took up painting seriously and his sketchbooks were filled with images from the streets and homes that he visited for his day job. In 1915 he started evening classes at Salford School of Art under Bernard D Taylor and the stylised human form that became his trademark began to emerge. Taylor encouraged him to use the white backgrounds that would come to be one of his trademarks. In 1928 he stopped attending art school. L. S. Lowry - Exhibiting He first exhibited in 1919 with two paintings at the Annual Exhibition the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts and showed widely throughout the 1920s although his work was often dismissed as amateurish and childlike. In 1921 he exhibited his work in the offices of the Manchester architect Roland Thomasson and sold his first picture, a pastel entitled The Lodging House.

He entered paintings in the Paris Salon, with the New English Art Club (from 1927 to 1936), in Dublin, Manchester and Japan. Lowry illustrated A Cotswold Book written by H. W. Timperley in 1930 with twelve drawings made soon after he held a solo exhibition of drawings at the Round House gallery at Manchester University. The book was published in 1931. In 1938, Alexander J. McNeill Reid, a director of the Lefevre Gallery in London, saw several of Lowry's paintings awaiting framing at James Bourlet & Sons Limited (now the transport division of Sotheby's auction house). He inquired after the artist and in 1939 a one-man exhibition of his paintings was held at the Lefevre Gallery (some books on Lowry call it the Reid & Lefevre Gallery). That exhibition sold sixteen paintings including one to the Tate Gallery (for just ï¿½15). It came as a very pleasant surprise to Lowry, who said that the show gave him more pleasure than anything else in art.

The (Reid &) Lefevre Gallery showed 15 solo exhibitions of his work between 1945 and 1979. He first exhibited at the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts (MAFA) in 1932, was elected a member in 1934 and continued to exhibit there annually until 1972. In 1936 Salford City Art Gallery bought its first Lowry painting from the MAFA exhibition; it was A Street Scene painted in 1928. The city held its first one man show of his work in 1941 and opened a permanent collection of his work in 1958. He became a member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1934. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Show in 1932 and was elected an Associate in 1955 and a full Royal Academician in 1962. Lowry and some other members of the Manchester Arts Club formed a sub-group called the Manchester Group, which exhibited at the Midday Studios, Moseley Street, Manchester and elsewhere in the city until 1956.

Retrospective exhibitions of his work include those at Salford City Art Gallery as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain, the Manchester City Art Gallery in 1959, the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield in 1962, and at the Stone Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1964. In 1965 the Arts Council curated a touring retrospective exhibition that ended with a six-week show at the Tate Gallery in 1967. The Royal Academy, London held a posthumous tribute in 1976. L. S. Lowry - Death of his parents His father died in 1932 leaving debts and his mother, who had been subject to neurosis and depression, became bed ridden. Lowry's mother had always been a very important figure in his life and now he had to care for her. He painted from 10 pm to 2 am after his mother had fallen asleep. He frequently expressed regret that he received little recognition as an artist until the year that his mother died and that she had never been able to enjoy his success.

From the mid 1930s until at least 1939 Lowry took annual holidays at Berwick-upon-Tweed. With the outbreak of war Lowry served as a volunteer fire watcher in Manchester and accepted an invitation to become a war artist. In 1953 he was appointed Official Artist at the coronation of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. With the death of his mother in October 1939 Lowry became depressed and neglected the upkeep of his house to such a degree that the landlord repossessed it in 1948. He was not short of money and bought The Elms in Mottram-in-Longdendale, Cheshire. Although he considered the house ugly and uncomfortable he stayed there until his death almost thirty years later. In his new home he employed a housekeeper, Mrs Bessie Swindells, who ensured that he and his home were adequately maintained. She would cook his breakfast and leave a supper for him. L. S. Lowry - Retirement Lowry retired from the Pall Mall Property Company in 1952. During his career he had risen to become chief cashier but he never stopped collecting rents.

The firm had supported his development as an artist and he was allowed him time off for exhibitions in addition to his normal holiday allowance. It seems, however, that he was not proud of his job; his secrecy about his employment by the Pall Mall Property Company is widely seen as a desire to present himself as a serious artist but the secrecy extended beyond the art world into his social circle. Margery Thompson first met him when she was a schoolgirl and he became part of her family circle. He attended concerts with her family and friends, visited her home and entertained her at his Pendlebury home where he shared his knowledge of painting. They remained friends until his death but he never told her that he had any work except his art. In the 1950s he regularly visited friends at Cleator Moor, Cumbria (where Geoffrey Bennett was Manager at National Westminster Bank and Southampton (where Margery Thompson had moved upon her marriage). Lowry painted pictures of the bank in Cleator Moor, Southampton Floating Bridge and other scenes local to his friends' homes. He befriended the 23-year-old Cumbrian artist Sheila Fell in November 1955 and supported her career by buying several pictures that he gave to museums.

In 1957 an unrelated thirteen-year-old schoolgirl called Carol Ann Lowry wrote to Lowry at her mother's urging to ask his advice on becoming an artist. He visited her home in Heywood, Greater Manchester some months later and became a family friend. L. S. Lowry - Awards He was awarded an honorary Master of Arts from the University of Manchester in 1945, and Doctor of Letters in 1961, and given freedom of the City of Salford in 1965. In 1975 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Salford and the same degree by the University of Liverpool. The art world celebrated his 77th birthday (in 1964) with an exhibition of his work and that of 25 contemporary artists who had submitted tributes to Monk's Hall Museum, Eccles. The Hallï¿½ Orchestra also performed a concert in his honour and Harold Wilson used Lowry's painting The Pond as his official Christmas card. Lowry's painting Coming out of school was the stamp of highest denomination in a series issued by the Post Office depicting great British artists in 1967. L. S.

Lowry - Death He died of pneumonia at The Woods hospital in Glossop on 23 February 1976 aged 88. He was buried in Chorlton Southern Cemetery, Manchester next to his parents. He left his estate to Carol Ann Lowry. L. S. Lowry - Personal life Lowry never married although he had several young female friends. He claimed never to have "had a girl [friend]". He said that he lived for his mother and that all he wanted was her smile or a word of praise from her. His father was indifferent to his artistic activity and although Lowry believed that his mother did not understand his painting, "she understood me and that was enough". Elizabeth Lowry never did appreciate her son, however. In later life, starting in the 1950s, Lowry would often spend holidays at the Seaburn Hotel in Seaburn, Sunderland, Tyne & Wear, painting scenes of the beach, as well as nearby ports and coal mines. It is believed that the sea air appealed to him, as well as the industrial scenes that were very different from the satanic mills of Greater Manchester.

Lowry is fondly remembered in the city as a kindly old man, always wrapped up even at the height of summer, who kept himself to himself. When he had no sketchbook with him, Lowry would often draw scenes in pencil or charcoal on the back of scrap paper such as envelopes, serviettes, and cloakroom tickets and present them to young people sitting with their families nearby. Such serendipitous pieces are now worth thousands of pounds; a serviette sketch can be seen at the Sunderland Mariott Hotel (formerly the Seaburn Hotel). He may have had Asperger's Syndrome (the high-functioning form of autism) but this remains a contentious diagnosis that is not shared by those that knew him personally. He was a secretive and mischievous man who enjoyed stories irrespective of their truth. His friends have observed that his anecdotes were more notable for their humour than their accuracy and in many cases he set out deliberately to deceive. His stories of the fictional Ann were inconsistent and he invented other people as frameworks upon which to hand his tales.

The collection of clocks in his living room were all set at different times: to some people he said that this was because he didn't want to know the real time; to others he claimed that it was to save him from being deafened by their simultaneous chimes. The contradictions in his life are exacerbated by this confusion. He is widely seen as a shy man but he had many long-lasting friendships and made new friends throughout his adult life. He was contrary and could be selfish but he was generous and concerned for the well-being of his friends and of strangers. It may be as Sheila Fell has said: "He was a great humanist. To be a humanist one has first to love human beings, and to be a great humanist one has to be slightly detached from them." In later life he grew tired of being approached by strangers on account of his celebrity and he particularly disliked being visited at home in this way.

Another of his unverifiable stories had him keeping a suitcase by the front door so that he could claim to be just leaving, a practice he claimed to have abandoned after a helpful young man insisted on taking him to the station and had to be sent off to buy a paper so that Lowry could buy a ticket for just one stop without revealing his deceit. L S Lowry Home / Artists / L S Lowry L S Lowry Read more L S Lowry (Laurence Stephen Lowry) was born in Rusholme, Manchester, in November 1887, the only child of Irish-born R S Lowry and Elizabeth Lowry (née Hobson). He attended a local school in Victoria Park, but took private lessons from William Fitz, before starting work as a clerk for a firm of chartered accountants in 1904. From 1905-1915 he attended drawing and painting classes at the Municipal College of Art (later Manchester College of Art, and now part of Manchester Metropolitan University), where he was tutored by Adolphe Valette.

L S Lowry moved to Pendlebury in Salford with his parents in 1909, where he was to live for nearly 40 years. During this time he attended art classes at Salford School of Art, developing an interest in the urban and industrial landscape. He exhibited with the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts from 1919, as well as entering paintings in the Paris Salon. By the early 1930s he was exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London. He was awarded an honorary MA at Manchester University in 1945, and Doctor of Letters in 1961, elected to the Royal Academy in 1962, and given freedom of the City of Salford in 1965. He lived in Mottram until he died in 1976 – a death marked by unprecedented homage by the ‘ordinary people’ of Manchester. L S Lowry is unquestionably one of the most celebrated British artists and his unique contribution to recording the period, culture and landscape of industrial Salford and Manchester is without parallel. His work is a most distinctive and comprehensive record of the pre and post World War Two northern industrial town.

Many people associate Lowry with “matchstick men”, but he is known to have produced over 10,000 works, ranging from finished oil paintings to hastily drawn sketches. The local industrial scene was his most frequent subject but he also painted seascapes and portraits. He was a great humorist and had intense insight into human nature, characterising it without sentiment. Later in his life he concentrated on producing paintings of figures either singly or in groups, invariably against a white background. He also produced thousand of pencil drawings during his lifetime, these are now very collectable and the best ones are incredibly detailed. L S Lowry died without a registered doctor, leading the galleries a merry dance. Hoping to inherit a few paintings in his will, they courted him in his old age only to find he had left them all to a girl, also called Lowry, who had written him a letter years before, asking how she could become an artist. Lowry’s status as one of the major British artists of the 20th Century was reinforced when the painting “Going To The Match” was sold at Auction for a record £1.9 million to the Manchester-based Professional Footballers Association.

Manchester’s premier gallery, The Lowry Centre in Salford Quays, now holds a major collection of his work. Search for: LS Lowry Biography Blog L.S.Lowry Born in Manchester in 1887 Laurence Stephen Lowry was the only child of Robert and Elizabeth Lowry. He started drawing at the age of eight; and in 1903, he began private painting classes which marked the start of a part-time education in art that was to continue for twenty years. In 1904, aged 16, Lowry left school and secured a job as a clerk in a chartered accountants firm, he remained in full time employment until his retirement at the age of 65. His desire to be considered a serious artist led Lowry to keep his professional and artistic life completely separate and it was not disclosed until after his death that he had worked for most of his life.In his preface to the 1976 Royal Academy Memorial exhibition, Sir Hugh Casson referred to L S Lowry as one of the great English painters of this century.

An individual artist with a unique style,the work of Lowry spans the first half of the twentieth century recording with sensitivity and wit his own personal view of the people and architecture of the industrial north.His early training was at the Municipal College of Art, Manchester, where he was taught by the French artist Adolphe Valette who introduced him to Impressionism and of whom Lowry said I owe so much to him for it was he who first showed me good drawings by the great masters, he gave me the feeling that life drawing was a very wonderful thing. Lowry was, however, unaffected by impressionist technique of Valette and continued to develop a more realistic approach to his art. In 1909 Lowry and his parents moved to Pendlebury, where initially he was not happy, and for some years ignored his surroundings. In 1916, whilst waiting for a train, Lowry became fascinated by the workers leaving the Acme Spinning Company Mill; the combination of the people and the surroundings were a revelation to him and marked the turning point in his artistic career.

Lowry now began to explore the industrial areas of South Lancashire and discovered a wealth of inspiration, remarking "My subjects were all around me, in those days there were mills and collieries all around Pendlebury. The people who work there were passing morning and night. All my material was on my doorstep." By 1920, Lowry had developed his own unique style in his paintings.Street scenes, populated with workers, housewives and children set against a backdrop of industrial buildings and terraced houses had become central to his highly personal style. From now on he painted entirely from experience and believed that you should paint the place you know. Lowry would spend his leisure time walking the streets of Manchester and Salford making pencil sketches on scraps of paper and the backs of used envelopes recording anything that could be used in his work. In his early factory scenes the emphasis is placed on the buildings and the atmosphere was often dark and sombre, however, as Lowry developed this theme the figures became more prominent and eventually he arrived at a marriage between the two where the figures and surrounding from a whole.

Lowry had established his own particular style by 1930, he was encouraged by his teacher Bernard Taylor to try to make his figures and buildings stand out more and he began to experiment with setting them against a white background. He chose flake white building up layer after layer on the canvas before painting the subject matter straight on top. He used only four other colours: vermillion, prussian blue, ivory black and ochre which he applied straight from the tube. With the onset of the modernisation of the industrial north in mid 1950 Lowry lost interest in his surroundings and now concentrated almost entirely on figures silhouetted against a white background, occasionally standing on a hint of a pavement or near a ghost of a wall, but frequently suspended in time and space. Lowry continued to sketch and closely observe his subjects and his works form this period capture the essence and nature of the Northern people; he frequently mixes young and old and he imparts to each figures an individual character. Shelly Rhode in her book A private view of L S Lowry wrote he had a new obsession, his single figures, his grotesques.

The struggling, surging, misshapen homuculi who used to live for so long in the shadow of the mills emerging at last from their background to stand alone, as he stood alone. Lowry visited Wales in the 1960s with his friend and patron Monty Bloom which briefly revived his interest in industrial scenes. Lowry was impressed by the contrast between the industrial towns and the surrounding countryside, consequently his paintings from this period are brighter than his Lancashire paintings . However, towards the end of the 1960s Lowry began to lose his creative urge and, with the exception of the occasional moment of artistic inspiration he ceased painting almost completely. At the age of 88, Laurence Stephen Lowry died of pneumonia in 1976. Although he had received critical acclaim for his work during the second half of his life, he never forgot the lack of recognition that he had received initially and he carried with him the feeling of isolation and rejection throughout his career. He refused the offer of a knighthood, as well as numerous other honours, and remained disillusioned with the art world despite the praise that was often heaped upon him.

Lowry is always remembered as a man of remarkable resilience and sensitivity; he stood alone, unaffected by the influences of other artist and his inspiration came entirely from his own experience.Lowry's unique works continue to receive the critical acclaim the is so richly deserved. The most important private and public collections in the United Kingdom and abroad now hold Lowry paintings and drawings. The highest price for one of the artist's paintings was £1.9 million when 'Going To The Match' was sold in 1999. Later in 2007, the sale of the Lowry's painting "Daisy Nook Fair" achieved £3.8m. May, 2011 "The Football Match" painting (not 'Going to the match') by Lowry was sold for £5,641,250.

November, 2011 The 1960 painting of 'Piccadilly Circus' by L.S.Lowry was sold for £5,641,250 Recently the 'Going to the Match' painting has been valued at £6,000,000-10,000,000 We hope that you will browse and enjoy Paintings and signed prints by wildlife artist David Shepherd Also the work of William Russell Flint whose paintings and signed prints are regsarded as some of the finest watercolours in the world. Famous for his portraits of Cecilia, Flint's greastest works illustrate the architecture and landscape throughout rural France This holiday house near Brantome, Frane is ideally situated to enjoy the Dordogne Read more The work of Mr L.S. Lowry has become of great artistic and financial importance of recent years. A selection of his prints and paintings can be viewed here Our aim is to offer our clients an excellent service at unbeatable prices.

His Life and Career LS Lowry - His Life and Career Art School 1905 "If people call me a Sunday painter I'm a Sunday painter who paints every day of the week!" Lowry was always irritated by people who thought he was an amateur painter, self-taught and untutored. "Started when I was fifteen. Don't know why. Aunt said I was no good for anything else, so they might as well send me to Art School..." In 1905 he began evening classes in antique and freehand drawing. He was to study both in the Manchester Academy of Fine Art and at Salford Royal Technical College in Peel Park. Academic records show him still attending classes in the 1920s. Lowry knew from his teachers - people like the Frenchman Adolphe Valette - how French Impressionism had changed the painting of landscapes and the modern city. He knew from exhibitions in Manchester what the current trends in modern art were, and deeply admired Pre-Raphaelites like Ford Madox Brown and Rossetti.

Far from being a naïve Sunday painter, Lowry was an artist looking for his own distinctive way of painting and drawing - and for a subject matter he could make his own, preferring eventually the view from the Technical College window to that of the posed model. A Painter's Vision, 1920 In his early years Lowry lived in the leafy Manchester suburb of Victoria Park. Then lack of money obliged his family to move to Station Road, Pendlebury, where factory chimneys were a more familiar sight then trees. Lowry would recall "At first I detested it, and then, after years I got pretty interested in it, then obsessed by it." The subjects for his paintings were on his doorstep. In later life he recalled this as a sort of vision. "One day I missed a train from Pendlebury - (a place) I had ignored for seven years - and as I left the station I 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...

I watched this scene - which I'd looked at many times without seeing - with rapture..." An Appreciation, 1921 A writer in The Guardian newspaper, Bernard Taylor, recognised the real quality of Lowry's work, when he reviewed one of the artist's earliest exhibitions. "Mr Laurence S Lowry has a very interesting and individual outlook. His 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..." The Industrial Scene late 1920s - 1930s Lowry worked as rent collector for the Pall Mall Property Company. He did not tell people about his work because he did not want them to think of him as a spare-time painter. His job led to him walking all over the city. What did he see?

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 in his lifetime: blitz and rebuilding, slum clearances and new housing, changed the face of the city he had observed so well. "I saw the industrial scene and I was affected by it. I tried to paint it all the time. I tried to paint the industrial scene as best I could. It wasn't easy. Well, a camera could have done the scene straight off." Artist at Work Lowry felt that drawings were as hard to do as painting. He worked the surface of his drawings by smudging, erasing and rubbing the pencil lines on his paper to build the atmosphere of the drawing. He was always doing quick sketches on the spot on whatever paper he had in his pockets. 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 to get into his painting the stark figures and the pallor of the industrial sky that he wanted. Taylor suggested he painted on a pure white background. Lowry experimented with layers of white paint on boards, leaving them for a time so the surface went creamy. Colour 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 I 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 Lowry's paintings 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 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. He was once asked what he did with his old suits. "Wear them", came the reply!

He certainly wore them to paint in, wiping the brushes on his lapels and sleeves. Desolation Row 1930s - 1940s Lowry's father died in 1932. For the next seven years, his 73 year old mother became 'bed fast' and completely ruled her son's life. After her death in 1939, Lowry painted The Bedroom Pendlebury - in memory of those long hours he spent looking after her. She always demanded his attention. Lowry would only get to his painting room late at night after she had settled. "She did not understand my painting, but she understood me and that was enough." These were years of isolation and growing despair, reflected in Lowry's paintings. They depict derelict buildings and wastelands as mirrors of himself. As an official war artist - himself emotionally blitzed - he drew the ruined shells of bombed-out buildings. In1939, the year his mother died - the person he most wanted to please - he tasted success with his first London exhibition. "After she died, I lost all interest." Continuing to paint was his "salvation".

Private Man, Public Figure 1950s - 1970s Just when Lowry began to have success he was moving away from the subjects that everybody wanted him to paint. "Had I not been lonely none of my works would have happened". Some of his most powerful pictures are deserted landscapes and seascapes. Some of the most difficult pictures to like are of solitary figures and down and outs. "I feel more strongly about these people than I ever did about the industrial scene. They are real people, sad people. I'm attracted to sadness and there are some very sad things. I feel like them." Everything came too late for Lowry. But his late years saw him become a popular celebrity. He 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 he collected and loved. From Childhood to Childhood 1976 "I painted from childhood to childhood." Lowry painted and drew into his old age - often protesting to interviewers that he had "given up", "packed it in". He died aged 88 in 1976 just months before a retrospective exhibition opened at the Royal Academy.

It broke all attendance records for a twentieth century artist. 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. Pier 8, Salford Quays, M50 3AZ Box Office: 0843 208 6000 Groups Line: 0843 208 6003 Calls to 08 numbers will cost 7p per minute plus your network operator’s access charge. Lawrence Stephen Lowry in Cumbria – Visit Cumbria Lawrence Stephen Lowry in Cumbria L S Lowry Laurence Stephen Lowry was born in Old Trafford, Manchester (UK), on November 1st, 1887. He moved to Pendlebury in Salford with his parents in 1909, where he was to live for nearly 40 years. Despite the inexorable link between Lowry and working class life, he did not grow up in poverty.

He had few friends at school and passed no exams, but it was decided that he should enrol at Manchester School of Art which he did in 1905, for evening classes. He joined Salford School of Art for evening classes in 1915, which is where his work on the matchstick figures developed. He had his first job in 1904 where he ‘drifted into’ office work as a clerk with a Manchester accountant. In 1910 Lowry took a job with a property company in Manchester as a rent collector, and stayed with them for the next 42 years. He spent much of his working life walking the poorest streets of Manchester and its surrounding area, and this is where his vision formed. Coming from the Mill, 1930 ‘Coming from the Mill’, 1930Lowry first exhibited in 1919 at Manchester Art Gallery. By 1945 Lowry had had 3 exhibitions and was starting to establish himself. By the 1950s the Royal Academy had invited him to join and his fame and success were assured.

Lowry always claimed loneliness and dissatisfaction, but one wonders to what degree he really craved anything different. As he said himself, ‘Had I not been lonely, none of my work would have happened.’ He deprived himself of many of life’s simple pleasures – living in isolation – and the price he effectively paid to be a great artist was his happiness. ‘Floating Bridge, Southampton’ ‘Floating Bridge, Southampton’He did not just paint northern scenes, and visited the south coast looking for ships and ferries to paint. He also painted a few pictures of London, including one of Piccadilly Circus, with his trademark ‘matchstick people’ wearing bowler hats and London fashions (sold recently for £200,000). By the early 1930s he was exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London. He was awarded an honorary MA at Manchester University in 1945, and Doctor of Letters in 1961, elected to the Royal Academy in 1962, and given freedom of the City of Salford in 1965 – many other honours followed later. He left Pendlebury in 1948 when the landlord re-possessed the house.

He moved to Mottram-in-Longdendale, Cheshire, where he lived until he died in 1976. Lowry was buried in Chorlton Southern Cemetery, sharing the grave of his parents. A stone cross bears the simple inscription: “Also their beloved son, Laurence Stephen Lowry. Born Nov 1, 1887, died Feb 23, 1976.” The grave is now in a state of shabby neglect. During his life Lowry had painted and drawn some 2000-3000 pieces. Harold Wilson had offered him a knighthood and had used ‘The Pond’ as his official christmas card in 1964. Lowry’s picture ‘Coming out of school’ was the highest value stamp in a series depicting great British artists in 1967. There was a long standing friendship between Lowry and Geoffrey Bennett (1902-1991), who were introduced by Lowry’s cousin Grace who worked with Bennett in Lancashire. The Bennetts moved to Cumberland when Geoffrey was made manager of the Westminster Bank in Cleator Moor .

Lowry kept in touch with his friends and visited them in Cleator Moor, and later in Carlisle after Geoffrey was made an Angican clergyman in 1962. ‘Westminster Bank, Cleator Moor’, 1951.The bank where Geoffrey Bennett was the manager. ‘Cowles Fish and Chip Shop’ ‘Cowles Fish and Chip Shop, Cleator Moor’, 1948.One day in Cleator Moor, Lowry suddenly noticed crowds of people outside Cowles fish and chip shop, opposite the Westminster Bank. He borrowed pastels belonging to Geoffrey’s son and set to work at once. The pastel drawing was sold recently for more than twice the value of the property itself. Bennett had an impressive collection of artworks, including these West Cumbrian Lowrys, and when he died these were left to the Dean and Chapter of Carlisle Cathedral, who sold them to raise funds to support the maintenance of the Cathedral. ‘Landscape with Figures, Workington’, 1969. The Remains of Jane Pit, at Moss Bay.

Question: In which UK city was artist L S Lowry born?
Answer: Manchester