Hidden - the Secret Life of Lowry's Art
17 July 2004 - 8 January 2005
For the first time at The Lowry, x-rays of 6 LS Lowry paintings will be on show as part of Hidden: the Secret Life of Lowry’s Art, an exhibition which uses technology and innovative display methods to examine aspects of the artist’s work that are normally hidden from view.
The Lowry commissioned Dr Nicholas Eastaugh, one of the world's leading 'art detectives' and a renowned expert on fine art forgery, to x-ray a selection of Lowry paintings in an attempt to reveal the hidden techniques, ideas and original concepts that are believed to lurk under the layers of paint. Eddie Bowes, renowned art conservator analysed the x-ray results, throwing fresh light on the missing early years of Lowry’s development as an artist.
The x-rays show how, as a young man, Lowry was driven by a consuming passion, endlessly painting one art school study on top of another in a desire to master the complexities of his craft. This is in stark contrast to his later work when he made it his mission to ‘put the industrial scene on the map’. The x-rays provide specific information about individual pictures, such as how Lowry changed his mind when painting, details of brushwork and technique, how he re-used the canvas or panel and how damage has been hidden by later restoration.
One example is Pit Tragedy, 1919, oil on canvas, which weighs roughly four times as much as other paintings of similar size. This is because Lowry used many layers of paint on top of each other, which can be seen when it is out of its frame. Some of these layers are green, indicating that Lowry may have painted a landscape on the canvas. The x-rays showed us that the canvas was once divided into two contrasting areas, confirming this theory. The white half is the sky of a landscape painting; the darker half in x- ray transparent colours is the earth. There is another image if you turn the x-ray upside down. It contains a large circular shape and two smaller round objects to the right. This is one of Lowry's rare early still life groups showing fruit nestling in a crumpled white cloth. It would have been similar to another picture in the collection, Still Life with Apples, 1906.
Lindsay Brooks, The Lowry's Head of Galleries commented “It has always been suspected that under many finished Lowry paintings hides a multitude of changes and different pictures – if only because we know Lowry often reused canvasses, especially during the war in the 1940s. We selected the following Lowry paintings for x-ray as their weight indicated that there was more than one paint layer: Boy in a Yellow Jacket, 1935, Portrait of Mother, 1912, Blitzed Site, 1942, Head of a Bald Man, circa 1913 – 1914, Hetty, 1910, and Pit Tragedy, 1919. Conservators have over the last few years discovered many interesting and intriguing results from x-raying paintings and this exhibition forms part of our remit to explore all aspects of Lowry’s art.”
Alongside the x-rays, Hidden will also display the backs of drawings and paintings. The back of a picture can tell us, through labels, about the history of its journey through different hands since it left the artist’s studio. Once Lowry finished a painting, its career as an object was just beginning. Some led eventful lives and the paintings in the exhibition have travelled to different parts of the UK on display, as well as to different owners.
The drawings on display demonstrate the essentially casual nature of his sketching activity – he’d use postcards, greetings cards, envelopes etc on which to draw. There are also many drawings revealed that Lowry started and didn’t finish - often related to the final drawing on the front of the paper.
Hidden provides a unique opportunity to see Lowry’s work from a new angle.
Posted on Thursday, 01 July 2004 under Press Galleries Press