Each gallery in Lowry Favourites looks at a different theme in Lowry’s work.

People

‘A street is not a street without people … it is as dead as mutton.’

Lowry loved watching people – outside mills, at fairgrounds or football matches, in children’s playgrounds or at busy markets. He sketched outdoors throughout his life, often recording people and places as little more than a scribble on the back of an envelope. Groups of people and unusual situations constantly attracted his attention.

Places

‘If I was asked my chief recreation, I ought to say walking about the streets of any poor quarter of any place I may happen to be in.’

Lowry is still best known for his industrial scenes based on the urban landscapes of Manchester and Salford. As clerk and rent collector for the Pall Mall Property Company Lowry called on tenants in some of the poorer districts of Manchester which provided material for his work. Although his drawings often depict specific sites his paintings are usually ‘composite … part real, and part imaginary … bits and pieces of my home locality.’

The Sea

‘Had I not been lonely, none of my work would have happened. I should not have done what I’ve done, or seen the way I saw things.’

The sea was a strong source of inspiration for Lowry. As a child he spent family holidays in Rhyl or Lytham St Anne’s. In the 1960s he became a regular visitor to the Seaburn Hotel in Sunderland. From his room he could view the changing moods of the North Sea. ‘It’s all there. It’s all in the sea. The battle of life is there. And fate. And the inevitability of it all. And the purpose.’

Extra Content

Watch a 3 minute clip from ITV1's Perspectives where Julian Spalding takes us on a tour of LS Lowry's life through some of his most famous, and popular, works.

Listen to an AudioBoo below from Clair Stewart, Curator of the LS Lowry Collection, which highlights two new loans on display.