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Lot Essay
The present work, a scene based on the Whit-Thursday Procession held yearly at Pendlebury, was included in Lowry's first one-man show in London in 1939. Lowry had already turned fifty and despaired of ever being accepted by the London art establishment, when Daisy Jewell, the head of the framing department at James Bourlets and Sons and a personal champion of Lowry's work, managed to interest the prestigious Lefevre Gallery in some paintings. Lowry had exhibited paintings extensively throughout the 1920s and 1930s in the U.K. and Europe where he was particularly popular at the Paris Salon. He was included in the Who's Who of European Painters in 1931, described as a specialist in industrial scenes, but even so, sales hardly ever materialised.
Early in 1938, a director of the Lefevre Gallery, A.J. McNeill Reid, visited Daisy Jewell at Bourlets, and he later recalled the visit in 1968: 'my attention began to wander and I spotted through an open door a small picture sitting on the chair in the adjoining room. I went through and saw a very lovely little street scene with masses of figures in it - signed L.S. Lowry. I asked Miss Jewell ... who L.S. Lowry was and she said: 'Oh, he's a Manchester artist'. 'Well,' I said, 'could you send down half a dozen, say, to the gallery tomorrow morning, and if my partner MacDonald likes them as much as I do we will have a show'. MacDonald did like them. I wrote to Lowry and, naturally, he was absolutely delighted because he was in deep despair feeling that nobody would ever want his pictures at all'. Reid later wrote to Lowry confirming a show the following year and requested that: 'between now and the time of delivery of your pictures ... you will be able to paint some very good canvases which will please the critics and the public'. Indeed the Tate Gallery, London, purchased Dwellings, Ordsall Lane, Salford, from the exhibition and press coverage was encouraging. The firm took over Lowry's affairs and the exhibition proved to be a turning point in his life (see S. Rohde, L.S. Lowry A Biography, Salford, 1999, pp. 158-60, 206-7).
Early in 1938, a director of the Lefevre Gallery, A.J. McNeill Reid, visited Daisy Jewell at Bourlets, and he later recalled the visit in 1968: 'my attention began to wander and I spotted through an open door a small picture sitting on the chair in the adjoining room. I went through and saw a very lovely little street scene with masses of figures in it - signed L.S. Lowry. I asked Miss Jewell ... who L.S. Lowry was and she said: 'Oh, he's a Manchester artist'. 'Well,' I said, 'could you send down half a dozen, say, to the gallery tomorrow morning, and if my partner MacDonald likes them as much as I do we will have a show'. MacDonald did like them. I wrote to Lowry and, naturally, he was absolutely delighted because he was in deep despair feeling that nobody would ever want his pictures at all'. Reid later wrote to Lowry confirming a show the following year and requested that: 'between now and the time of delivery of your pictures ... you will be able to paint some very good canvases which will please the critics and the public'. Indeed the Tate Gallery, London, purchased Dwellings, Ordsall Lane, Salford, from the exhibition and press coverage was encouraging. The firm took over Lowry's affairs and the exhibition proved to be a turning point in his life (see S. Rohde, L.S. Lowry A Biography, Salford, 1999, pp. 158-60, 206-7).