In the 1960s, Britain was undergoing significant social and economic changes: industrialisation was at its peak and cities, particularly in the North, were bustling with activity. Many cities by this time had been rebuilt after the destruction caused by war, and life was finally returning to normality for many of its inhabitants. Lowry’s iconic street scenes, such as the present lot, demonstrate the Artist’s observation of everyday life during this time of social and commercial flourishing. He is renowned for observing and putting these scenes into paint with remarkable attention to detail and hues of emotion and character in the individual figures.
'a country landscape is fine without people, but an industrial set without people is an empty shell. A street is not a street without people...’.
Street Scene with Church Spire includes all the most beloved features of Lowry’s work: factories in the background, smoking chimneys, shop fronts, lampposts and particularly unique to this work is the central looming church spire which appears to look out over the entire scene. In addition to carefully composed architecture, the present work is also flourishing with the life of the city through its people. In the front left we see a man pushing a pram in one hand, and another young child in the other, a gaggle of children look mischievous running along the gate, and all kinds of people across different ages and occupations wait outside the store or have their dogs in tow. Lowry has included the entrance to the central area of this town, as if the viewer, or indeed, the artist himself, is being welcomed into this community by the open gate. The perspective of this work is both observational from a distance, while also appearing to be familiar with the comings and goings of the town.
‘Once you have seen how Lowry saw us, you cannot ever see or be in a football crowd, nor watch kids playing, workers leaving the factory, queuing, or stopping to chat or hear the fairground barker, without saying, 'Lowry! It’s just like a Lowry painting!' Going about our business or pleasure, we are all subjects of his vision’
The church spire is a dominant aspect in the present work, due to its positioning and dark grey colour that Lowry has used to depict it, in juxtaposition with his lighter and brighter palette elsewhere in the painting consisting of reds, blues and light browns. This could perhaps be a statement of kinds: a to-and-fro between the modernity offered by the factories, and the tradition imposed by the church in communities such as this one in Britain in this time. Through Street Scene with Church Spire, Lowry offers a compelling insight into the rapidly changing urban landscape of northern England across the 20th century through his sophisticated use of colour, composition and emotion.
Street Scene with Church Spire has a particularly special provenance, originally being a gift to a curator at the Salford Museum, which is now The Lowry in the newly built museum space in Salford quays. Lowry had a resonance with the Salford Museum, being from where he grew up, worked and spent the majority of his lifetime, and they were also great supporters of his work. The museum now holds one of the largest public collections of Lowry’s works and they are an important custodian of his legacy. The painting was then inherited by the nephew of the curator, and then acquired by the prominent art dealer and collector Michael Grimes, before coming to the collection of this distinguished British Collection.