Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A.

Acquired by the present owner circa 1977

The board is in good overall condition. There are some tiny lines of craquelure in places across the paint surface. There is an artist's pinhole in the upper right corner and small spots of lifting to the paint surface in the very corners of the upper left and lower right quadrants. There is no sign of retouching under ultra-violet light. Held in a gilded wooden frame with a painted cross-section. Please telephone the department on 020 7293 5381 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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The sea was a constant presence in Lowry's life, and like the industrial landscape with which he is so closely identified, a theme that remains central to his art throughout his life. As a child, the Lowry family had taken regular seaside holidays at popular resorts such as Lytham St.Anne's and Rhyl, and indeed paintings and drawings of such places are amongst his earliest surviving works. His 1930 painting Sailing Boats (The Estate of L.S.Lowry) was apparently the only one of his works for which his mother showed any liking, and it hung in Lowry's front room until his death.

Whilst the earliest images tend to concentrate on the coast itself and the boats out at sea, the possibilities of the crowds who gathered there as subject matter soon became obvious to Lowry. Drawings such as On the Sands of 1921 (coll. The Lowry) see the beach populated by a cast of familiar figures, who but for the setting appear little changed from their usual street appearances. However, by the 1940s, his paintings of this subject were to become increasingly complex images. Perhaps the best known, July, The Seaside of 1943 (Arts Council Collection) fills the canvas with a huge number of figures, including hordes of children, and the range of activities in which these figures are engaged is truly staggering. Considering the date when it was painted, and the privations of the war years, the image clearly came from the artist's imagination, and may perhaps therefore be seen as something of an antidote to the grimmer realities of the period.

Lowry's work in the 1960s saw an increasing distillation of his images, an apparent paring down to the essence of each subject. As the industrial scenes became less rooted in actual topography, so the beach paintings take on the qualities of memories. The present work, richly textured, uses an almost notational manner to bring the figures on the beach to life and to animate the boats on the water. The interaction of the figures is still there, but the details have become less important than the whole, an image of halcyon days that resonates within the personal recollections of the viewer.