Laurence Stephen Lowry

Alex Reid & Lefevre, London, where acquired by Wilfrid A. Evill November 1958 for £22.0.0, by whom bequeathed to Honor Frost in 1963

London, The Tate Gallery, Contemporary Art Society, The Private Collector, 23rd March - 23rd April 1950, cat. no.146;
London, The Home of Wilfrid A. Evill, Contemporary Art Society, Pictures, Drawings, Water Colours and Sculpture, April - May 1961, (part IV- section 4) cat. no.4;
Brighton, Brighton Art Galleries, The Wilfrid Evill Memorial Exhibition, June - August 1965, cat. no.104.

The sheet is sound and has been laid down. There is a tiny media mark in the upper right corner. Generally the work is in excellent original condition. Held under glass in a stained wood frame with a grey mount; unexamined out of frame. Please telephone the department on 020 7293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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This marvellously animated drawing shows just how well Lowry understood the dynamics of a crowd and was able to translate this into an image.

In 1948 Lowry visited the annual fours race at the Agecroft Regatta between the Manchester University Boat Club and the Agecroft Rowing Club. Held on the River Irwell at Kersal Cell, the event clearly drew large crowds and in this drawing, and another version, as well as the final painting The Regatta (fig. 1, Private Collection), the emphasis is much more strongly slanted towards the people gathered on the banks than the race itself. Events which brought together not just numbers of people but a variety of subjects had become increasingly interesting to Lowry through the 1930s and early 1940s, and in this drawing we can see the way in which he adapted his drawing style into a looser, almost notational, manner to capture the sense of the scene and the movement therein.

Clearly the main focus of the crowd's attention is the river and the race, but for Lowry this offers him a wonderful opportunity to approach the crowd unnoticed. As such we begin to see that those actually watching and cheering form a relatively small band along the water's edge, whilst behind them all sorts of activities are carrying on. Couples stroll, children pester their parents, friends chat and joke. In the foreground, two children chase a dog across the grass, their movement and activity rendered with a perfect understanding yet achieved with barely a handful of strokes of the pencil.