As a Yorkshire Pudding, it pains me to confess that one of my all-time favourite artists is the Lancastrian - Laurence Stephen Lowry. Born in Manchester in 1887, L.S. Lowry died in Glossop in 1976. He was an odd fellow - a tall bumbling bachelor with a pipe and trilby, an untidy and unmodernised house, few friends but he possessed an abnormally strong bond with his mother even long after she had died.In the twenties and into the thirties, he was mostly focussed on the grim workaday reality of his sprawling home city. He said, "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".
His painting came to an abrupt halt in 1939 with his mother's death. "After she died, I lost all interest".
After World War II, he was drawn to painting individual people - often ordinary people who inhabited his neighbourhood. He said, "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".
In my little gallery below I have posted three of my favourite Lowries from the nineteen thirties:-
A Procession 1938... And an old man turns away from the
passing throng at the end of his street. He has seen it all before.
Man With Red Eyes 1938... The gaze is intense and unsettling. The mind is troubled. Perhaps it is a metaphor for Lowry himself.
A Fight 1935... It's a community event. Who knows why they are fighting? It seems so petty. Like a scene from some slapstick silent movie.
Hi Yorkshire! Your blog is fabulous. Today's especcially. Little tidbits of information, that will likely come in handy in obscure conversations i frequently have...!!! I'll be back again.
ReplyDeleteFrom a Yorkshire girl in New Jersey.
match stick men & match stick cats ^ dogs, went the lyrics. there is always so much to see in his pictures. Hockney has been doing large paintings along Woldgate, west of Brid, these although different capture the spirit of the place too.
ReplyDeleteYes Ms Muddyboots, I saw that Hockney has a huge canvas in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and it is of an East Yorkshire scene just a stone's throw from Hopskipandjumpsea!
ReplyDeleteLILLY. Nice you dropped by from Noo Joisey! Thanks for the compliment you paid me - much appreciated. What are you doing out there? Did you fall in love with an American or was it work that took you there? Pehaps you are a stranded Bruce Springsteen fan!
Oh my goodness, just found your blog at work whilst doing some naughty surfing! I love Lowry too, I'm lucky to live just down the road from the Lowry gallery in Salford. I love the photos of them carrying all the Rosetti portaits out of his bedroom after he died!
ReplyDeleteRight now I'm living in Prague, seeing the flood photos is devastating.
May I link to you?
Hi Yorkie,Well being a yorkshireman myself living in canada now,i have always listened to matchstalk men because of my grandmother and mum,it is nice to see your blog has this in words and the man to whom they sang about,i am very saddened about the floods ,yorkshire is a very historical place and the damage im sure is outstanding.Your site is very informative ,im happy i came across it only to be looking for a good yorkie recipe for yorkie porkies.Thanks----Andrew Emmett of Leeds And Bradford
ReplyDeletehey i like the pictures but how much is the top one worht rough idea please.
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