Laurence Stephen Lowry

Laurence Stephen Lowry R.A. (British, 1887-1976) 'The Level Crossing, Burton on Trent' signed 'L. S. Lowry' in pencil (lower right), with blind stamp (lower left) limited edition print 41 x 57cm (16 1/8 x 22 7/16in). together with another, 'Street Scene', signed 'L. S. Lowry' in pencil (lower right), with blind stamp (lower left), limited edition colour print, (2)

Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A. (1887-1976) Study for Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II signed, inscribed and dated 'Study for picture of/Coronation of Queen/Elizabeth II/L S Lowry' (on the artist's label attached to the mount) ball point pen 4½ x 7 in. (11.4 x 17.7 cm.) Executed in 1953. (4) Andrew Faulds MP. Sold with two photographs of Lowry and a copy of the audio interview In Town Tonight, 20 June 1959. Lowry was one of a number of artists who were commissioned by the Ministry of Works under Sir David Eccles to record the Coronation on 2 June 1953. Lowry wrote to his friend and fellow artist David Carr describing the event: 'I did all right on the day last week. I fear I didn't get there as early as I ought to have done (six o'clock in the morning was the time they asked folk to be in their places and I would hate to tell you what time I did arrive). The weather was awful in the afternoon, not so terrible in the morning. I was perched in a stand in front of the Palace a very good view in fact it couldn't have been better. What I am going to paint I don't know. Some excellent incidents took place round about which fascinated me but not, I should imagine, what the Ministry of Works want, I am sorry to say.' Lowry's finished painting The Procession passing the Queen Victoria Memorial, Coronation, 1953, is owned by the Government Art Collection.

Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A. (1887-1976) Mill scene signed with initials 'L.S.L' (lower right), signed again and dedicated 'by L.S. Lowry to/David Carr - with best wishes' (lower right of supporting card), dated indistinctly 'November 2nd 1945' (lower left of supporting card) and inscribed and dated again 'This is my first Mill drawing/done about 1916 or 1917' (on the reverse of the supporting card) black and coloured chalk 4½ x 7 in. (11.4 x 7.8 cm.) A gift from the artist to David Carr on the occasion of his thirtieth birthday. Anonymous sale; Phillips, London, 5 March 1996, lot 55. Sunderland, Arts Council of Great Britain, Sunderland Museum and Art Gallery, L.S. Lowry, August - September 1966, no. 118; this exhibition travelled to Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery, September - October 1966; Bristol, City Art Gallery, October - November 1966; and London, Tate Gallery, November 1966 - January 1967.

Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A. (1887-1976) At the Mill Gate signed and dated 'L.S. Lowry 1945' (lower left) oil on canvas 16 x 18 in. (40.6 x 45.7 cm.) with Lefevre Gallery, London. Mrs Doris Perry; Christie's, London, 19 May 1972, lot 80. with Leigh Gallery, Manchester. Gordon Mellor. Mrs Elsie Hamilton. Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 10 November 1989, lot 328. Acquired from Christie's by private treaty sale by the present owner in 2000. THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN London, Lefevre Gallery, Paintings by Barbara Hepworth, Paintings by L.S. Lowry, April 1948, no. 39. London, Royal Academy, L.S. Lowry 1887-1976, September - November 1976, no. 162. Kendal, Abbott Hall Art Gallery, L.S. Lowry, July - September 1979, no. 9, as 'Outside the Mill Gate'. '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. That was no use to me. My ambition was to put the industrial scene on the map because nobody had done it, nobody had done it seriously.' (L.S. Lowry quoted in M. Howard, Lowry A Visionary Artist, Salford, 2000, p. 81). The "Manchester Man", Laurence Stephen Lowry came to know the building of his locale very well in his day-to-day life as a rent collector for the Pall Mall Property Company, where he worked from 1910 until his retirement in 1952. He recognised the potential of the industrial scene, a subject previously despised or dismissed as irredeemably ugly. Lowry found a beauty in the harsh reality of the industrialised community in which he lived and he was compelled to record it. He stated that Acme Mill in Pendlebury was the reason he became interested in the industrial scenes. In one of his stories he explains: 'as I got to the top of the station I saw the Acme Spinning Company's mill, the huge black framework of rows of yellow-lit windows stood up against the sad, damp-charged afternoon sky. The mill was turning out hundreds of little pinched, black figures, heads bent down, as though to offer the smallest surface to the swirling particles of sodden grit, were hurrying across the asphalt, along the mean streets with the inexplicable derelict gaps in the rows of houses, past the telegraph poles, homeward to high tea or pubwards, away from the mill and without a backward glance. I watched this scene - which I'd looked at many times without seeing - with rapture.' (L.S. Lowry quoted in J. Sandling and M. Leber, Lowry's City: A Painter and His Locale, Salford, 2000, p. 17). Painted in 1945, the present work shows a classic Lowry combination of a busy street scene coupled with the highly characterful architecture of the north of England. Many familiar motifs are present: the factories, the chimneys' billowing smoke, the telephone poles and church spires, the railings, and the arch-topped gateway surmounted by white industrial fog. Amongst this scenery men, women, children and dogs bustle. These figures are crucial to the scene. Lowry said 'An industrial set without people is an empty shell. A street is not a street without people, it is as dead as mutton' (L.S. Lowry quoted in J. Spalding, Lowry, London, 1987, p. 31). Lowry was careful to differentiate each figure in his crowds, as is evident in At the Mill Gate. Far from having the wooden uniformity of matchsticks, his people have a plastic variety which makes his compositions full of incidental incident. Lowry had a gift for painting what was grim with a tenderness that transformed and refigured it. His paintings never descended to sentimentality or satire. Instead they have remarkable integrity and honesty. Design and colour, together with paint-handling, were among Lowry's great strengths. The mill represented in the present work is probably not Acme Mill. Indeed, as with many of Lowry's paintings, At the Mill Gate may not represent a complete tangible view at all. Instead it is probably a composite view. Lowry made sketches of buildings that interested him and these would be worked up into oils, painted at night, over a long period of time. By this method he was able to edit and elide, altering what he had observed when necessary, to make more ordered and effective paintings which nevertheless remained true to the spirit of the subject. He 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' (M. Levy, Painters of Today, LS Lowry, London, 1961, p. 14). With this limited assortment of colours Lowry was able to capture the pollution-laden air of the industrial North West of England on an overcast day, after a shower of rain. White light from a silvery sky is reflected equally from wet cobble-stone, tarmacadam and grey slate roofs. He worked the paint with both ends of his brushes, with his fingers and with sticks or nails. The resultant surfaces have an extraordinary delicacy and richness. A major exhibition of the work of L.S. Lowry is a highlight of Tate's 2013 exhibition programme. Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life, opening in summer 2013, results from an invitation extended to the distinguished art historians T.J. Clark and Anne M. Wagner to reappraise Lowry for a new, extended audience. Including works by Lowry from the Tate collection and significant loans, the exhibition will reassess his contribution to art history and will argue for his achievement as Britain's pre-eminent painter of the industrial city.

Laurence Stephen Lowry R.A. (British, 1887-1976) Conversation In The Street signed and dated 'LS Lowry 1954' (lower left) pencil 14.3 x 15 cm. (4 1/8 x 5 7/8 in.) PROVENANCE: Sale; Sotheby's, London, 18 July 1990, Lot 264 Sale; Sotheby's, London, 30 September 1998, Lot 103 With Richard Green, London, 1998 Sale; Sotheby's, London, 30 September 1999, Lot 94 Private Collection, U.K. EXHIBITED: London, Richard Green, LS Lowry, 1887-1976 , 11 November 1998, cat.no.27