Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A.

Stone Gallery, Newcastle

The board is sound. There are some very minor lines of fine surface craquelure scattered in the sky, a small old abrasion to the centre of the bottom edge that is original to the board, a small speck of old paint loss in the bottom left corner and some very minor surface dirt otherwise in good original condition. Under ultraviolet light, there appear to be no signs of retouching. Held in a painted plaster with gilt frame. If you have any further queries, please call the 20th Century British Art department on +44(0) 207 293 6424.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Executed in 1965.

'I'm very fond of ships. The sea, too, I love. To watch it is like letting off steam: it's so vast' (The artist, quoted in Edwin Mullins, 'The Lonely Life of L.S.Lowry', pub. in Michael Leber & Judy Sandling (ed.), L.S. Lowry, Phaidon/Salford Art Gallery, Oxford 1987, p.69)

 

Whilst Lowry is indelibly associated with the north-west of England, and specifically with Manchester and its surrounding area, he had a long, fruitful and important association with the north-east. Coming late in his life (although Lowry had visited the area on occasion before, these trips only became regular and extended from around 1960 onwards when he was already over seventy), this association produced a body of work which is often very different from the 'typical' industrial Lowry subjects. Most notably, the paintings from the north-east show a very strong concentration on images of the sea and associated subjects.

 

The sea was not a new subject for the artist, with his very earliest sketches and paintings including boats and scenes from family holidays at places such as Rhyl and Lytham St Anne's, and in the late 1930s and early 1940s he produced a number of paintings empty of all subject bar sea and sky. This simplicity of image was something that Lowry transposed to his sea paintings that originate from his trips to the north-east. The images of boats are presented as simple forms parallel to the viewer but in a space we cannot physically reach and have a very distinctive and pervasive quality.

 

Mostly based at the Seaburn Hotel in Sunderland, Lowry made wide forays around the region, and spent many hours watching the shipping passing up and down the coast. Unlike his earlier works, the paintings of boats such as the present lot are resolutely working vessels, tankers, tugs, ferries, and the emphasis on their stark dark silhouettes gives a monumentality to their forms that is very much in keeping with the increasing paring down of forms that is seen in much of Lowry's later work. Recent commentators have noted that this growing sense of isolation in Lowry's later paintings was at least in part autobiographical.  Indeed the artist suggested that his self-portrait might take the form of 'A tall straight pillar standing up in the middle of the sea, waiting for the sea of life to finish it off' (The artist, quoted in Tilly Marshall, Life with Lowry, Hutchinson, London 1981, p.99).