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Lot Essay
By the 1960s, after his retirement from The Pall Mall Property Company, Lowry was free to roam his native Salford, taking in the modern city that had been regenerated after the Blitz and the destruction of old factories and tenements no longer fit for purpose. In the resulting works the artist moves away from his locale to concentrate on the figures who now loam large in the composition and have grown out of the scurrying 'stick figures' of the earlier decades. The city that appears in the later works is now made up from places that Lowry favoured the most, among these was Swinton, an area that he had known for decades and loved because its winding alleyways and Victorian mills clung on longer than most to its industrial past. Despite his predilection to create cityscapes based on composite elements, woven together for dramatic and panoramic effect, in the present work, Lowry focuses on a real and well-loved view that he knew extremely well and returned to many times.
'In London all they want now are pictures of little figures on them. People write, you know and say, "I'd like a mill scene" and I write back and say: "I can't do it and it wouldn't be any good if I did' L.S. Lowry
The Church of St Mary's is perched at the top of the well-trodden alleyway flanked by the Albion Mill and other factory buildings. In other works of the same subject, a tree can be seen swaying behind the long wall, which is often depicted at varying heights, to give a sense of engulfing the passers-by. In some paintings of this walkway a single hunched figure wanders into the distance, seemingly cowed by the stature of the buildings above him. In the present work, there are a number of carefree and engaged figures who interact with each other and go about their day in good spirits. The stress and strain of hurrying on at the sound of the factory bell is longer compelling these characters who mingle and dawdle in equal measure, some moving up the alleyway but others turning off in other directions. The mill and the church loom on the horizon still, but Lowry is no longer particularly interested in the factory paintings so loved by his public and he has turned his gaze to people watching and enjoying the resulting ambience created by a low-key crowd.
When Lowry's devoted housekeeper, Bessie Swindells, was to be rewarded for many years of loyalty, friendship and hard work, Lowry wanted to paint her a picture, but it would not be an industrial. 'Kindred spirits in their speech, their black humour and their banter. They understood each other so well that when Mrs Swindells said of a Lowry mill scene: "I don't think much to that" [Lowry] would chuckle and agree: " I don't think much to it myself". He knew her distaste was not for his art but, like so many of her generation who saw in his industrial painting the reality rather than the vision, an aversion to the memories they inspired. Perhaps he enjoyed faint echoes of maternal distain (S. Rohde, op. cit.).
Bessie's granddaughter insisted that her picture should include a Lowry cat, so Lowry obliged and painted it in under the fence on the right-hand side, staring out at a dog seated opposite. Bessie could not decide on a title for her painting, so Lowry just called it Mrs Swindells' Picture.
'In London all they want now are pictures of little figures on them. People write, you know and say, "I'd like a mill scene" and I write back and say: "I can't do it and it wouldn't be any good if I did' L.S. Lowry
The Church of St Mary's is perched at the top of the well-trodden alleyway flanked by the Albion Mill and other factory buildings. In other works of the same subject, a tree can be seen swaying behind the long wall, which is often depicted at varying heights, to give a sense of engulfing the passers-by. In some paintings of this walkway a single hunched figure wanders into the distance, seemingly cowed by the stature of the buildings above him. In the present work, there are a number of carefree and engaged figures who interact with each other and go about their day in good spirits. The stress and strain of hurrying on at the sound of the factory bell is longer compelling these characters who mingle and dawdle in equal measure, some moving up the alleyway but others turning off in other directions. The mill and the church loom on the horizon still, but Lowry is no longer particularly interested in the factory paintings so loved by his public and he has turned his gaze to people watching and enjoying the resulting ambience created by a low-key crowd.
When Lowry's devoted housekeeper, Bessie Swindells, was to be rewarded for many years of loyalty, friendship and hard work, Lowry wanted to paint her a picture, but it would not be an industrial. 'Kindred spirits in their speech, their black humour and their banter. They understood each other so well that when Mrs Swindells said of a Lowry mill scene: "I don't think much to that" [Lowry] would chuckle and agree: " I don't think much to it myself". He knew her distaste was not for his art but, like so many of her generation who saw in his industrial painting the reality rather than the vision, an aversion to the memories they inspired. Perhaps he enjoyed faint echoes of maternal distain (S. Rohde, op. cit.).
Bessie's granddaughter insisted that her picture should include a Lowry cat, so Lowry obliged and painted it in under the fence on the right-hand side, staring out at a dog seated opposite. Bessie could not decide on a title for her painting, so Lowry just called it Mrs Swindells' Picture.