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Lot Essay
The present work must rank amongst Lowry's most joyful war-time pictures, depicting a trio of merry women, dancing in the street after a visit to the local pub. We are not sure why they are celebrating and we are not aware of any other event going on around them, in fact they seem to be causing some disapproval amongst the onlookers, but their joy and bonhomie is very infectious to the viewer, even if one senses that this may be rather short-lived.
Similar works in spirit include the Daisy Nook fairground pictures where celebrating crowds on a well-earned Easter holiday twirl whirligigs and buy brightly-coloured balloons or contemplate a ride on the 'Thriller' attraction. In an equally joyous composition, Children Playing (1958, private collection), which was selected by the Royal Mail to be used as a First Class stamp in 1996, a row of happy children skip down the street, arm-in-arm.
The present work was purchased by the painter David Carr (1915-1968) and was one of a number of very fine Lowry paintings in his outstanding collection of modern art. David Carr had chosen not to join the family biscuit business preferring to study art at Cedric Morris's East Anglian School of Drawing and Painting in Dedham, alongside fellow students Lucian Freud and Barbara Gilligan, the latter whom he married in 1942. A keen collector with a painter's eye, he wrote to Lowry in 1943 enquiring about a purchase that he wished to make of his work at the Lefevre Gallery. A long correspondence of over a decade ensued, and they frequently met to discuss painting and each other's pictures; Lowry even visited the family at home in East Anglia.
Lowry's letters to David Carr, which have been preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, are often quoted. Sadly, very few of Carr's letters to Lowry still exist but the two men's correspondence forms a fascinating record of like-minded, highly individual painters who shared a similar view of the world, or as Barbara Carr put it, 'They saw the odd side of life together' (see S. Rohde, L.S. Lowry A Life, London, 2007, pp. 186-189).
Similar works in spirit include the Daisy Nook fairground pictures where celebrating crowds on a well-earned Easter holiday twirl whirligigs and buy brightly-coloured balloons or contemplate a ride on the 'Thriller' attraction. In an equally joyous composition, Children Playing (1958, private collection), which was selected by the Royal Mail to be used as a First Class stamp in 1996, a row of happy children skip down the street, arm-in-arm.
The present work was purchased by the painter David Carr (1915-1968) and was one of a number of very fine Lowry paintings in his outstanding collection of modern art. David Carr had chosen not to join the family biscuit business preferring to study art at Cedric Morris's East Anglian School of Drawing and Painting in Dedham, alongside fellow students Lucian Freud and Barbara Gilligan, the latter whom he married in 1942. A keen collector with a painter's eye, he wrote to Lowry in 1943 enquiring about a purchase that he wished to make of his work at the Lefevre Gallery. A long correspondence of over a decade ensued, and they frequently met to discuss painting and each other's pictures; Lowry even visited the family at home in East Anglia.
Lowry's letters to David Carr, which have been preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, are often quoted. Sadly, very few of Carr's letters to Lowry still exist but the two men's correspondence forms a fascinating record of like-minded, highly individual painters who shared a similar view of the world, or as Barbara Carr put it, 'They saw the odd side of life together' (see S. Rohde, L.S. Lowry A Life, London, 2007, pp. 186-189).