Parton, Cumberland

The date of this drawing is significant. Lowry was a regular visitor to Cumberland in the course of his friendship with his enthusiastic patron, the Reverend Geoffrey Bennett and his wife Alice. In 1955, Sheila Fell had her first exhibition at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London in November. Lowry visited the show and bought two large paintings (now on loan to Carlisle Art Gallery) and arranged to meet Fell. They got on well and Lowry recognizing her poverty suggested that he would subsidize her to the tune of £3 a week, a sum that in those days would represent the difference between typical student deprivation and moderate comfort. Being the somewhat strait-jacketed Edwardian figure that he was, Lowry insisted on making the financial arrangements via Fell's parents and travelled up to Cumbria with Sheila to meet them. Lowry stayed in Cumberland for several days and, weather permitting, would set off with Sheila to sit at their easels in a back-to-back position with no peeping until the day's work was over. (Lowry, it should be emphasized, was not a plein air artist). Fell has related how, as dusk arrived and, having stopped work, they were free to look at what each artist had achieved. Lowry was able to gaze on another of Fell's Cumbrian landscapes while all Fell could see was yet another densely populated industrial scene.

It is not too fanciful to imagine that this drawing was the product of one of the Fell/Lowry excursions since it certainly looks more like a view of the industrial north-west than of a pastoral Cumbrian view. Certainly the elegant appearance of the two smartly dressed adults and the accompanying small boy make one favour townscape rather than countryside.

T.G.R.