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Lot Essay
In 1931 A Cotswold Book was published by Jonathan Cape, with text by Lowry's friend, patron and benefactor, H.W. Timperley. Timperley obtained for Lowry a commission to provide the twelve fully finished black and white pencil drawings for the book. This was a true act of generosity by Timperley because Lowry's very modest fee was deducted from Timperley's own modest earnings from the book.
While A Curved House is not among the book illustrations it was executed by Lowry in the same year as his commission and is stylistically, and in other ways, very much in the same spirit as the published drawings.
Architecturally the building is odd since, with its one very substantial door it looks more like a very short terrace or a block of flats than a single house. But, that cavil aside, it is both a very striking drawing as well as a very striking dwelling. It also carries a solid air of verisimilitude and the detailing, with its three types of windows, shows how seriously Lowry took all of his work and how carefully he delineated the interaction of the main building, the dry-stone wall at the edge of the water and the vigour of the dense growth of reeds in the foreground.
T.G.R.
While A Curved House is not among the book illustrations it was executed by Lowry in the same year as his commission and is stylistically, and in other ways, very much in the same spirit as the published drawings.
Architecturally the building is odd since, with its one very substantial door it looks more like a very short terrace or a block of flats than a single house. But, that cavil aside, it is both a very striking drawing as well as a very striking dwelling. It also carries a solid air of verisimilitude and the detailing, with its three types of windows, shows how seriously Lowry took all of his work and how carefully he delineated the interaction of the main building, the dry-stone wall at the edge of the water and the vigour of the dense growth of reeds in the foreground.
T.G.R.