Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A.

Alex. Reid & Lefevre Ltd, London
Sale, Sotheby's London, 7th April 1971, lot 103
Sale, Sotheby's London, 15th November 1978, lot 201
Sale, Christie's London, 12th March 1993, lot 98, where purchased by the present owner 

The board is stable. There are two vertical lines of paint cracking running up the right vertical edge of the composition and another in the lower left corner. There are traces of light surface dirt across the piece. Subject to the above the work appears to be in excellent overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals no obvious signs of florescence. The work is presented in an ornate gilt frame. Please contact the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"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."

The theme of loneliness within Lowry’s work is a much documented and discussed topic of the artist’s output from the late 1950s and early ‘60s, as in lot 22, typically centring on the characters that dominate the scenes that he created.  Yet here, in A House, Lowry brilliantly applies this same sense of isolation and foreboding to a building, which stands, like the man immediately before it, alone. Painted at a period when the artist had shifted his focus from the architectural setting to the figures that populated them, the work displays a lone building standing tall amid the thickened white smog of the street – a composition landscape, but one in which the artist has gone one step further through the very personification of the bricks and mortar. This is a building that like the man in the immediate foreground stands alone, the steep steps mirroring the support provided by the subject’s cane.

The tall black monolithic form draws comparison to the number of tall church spires that had fascinated him from the 1920s onwards in his depictions of the bulky exterior of St Augustine’s in Pendlebury - here now a steeple for the everyday and not just the Sunday folk – or the tall pillars rising ominously from the sea in his intriguing series of ‘self portraits’ of the 1960s. This architectural construct is at once familiar, appearing in varying forms in other paintings by the artist, each time adapted and altered to fit the specific requirements of the composition. The aforementioned steps to the right of the building in particular seem familiar, and indeed were a popular reoccurring artistic theme within Lowry’s oeuvre. Much like the gateways that he would return to time and again, they formed an important architectural component of Lowry’s visual language.

Lowry’s paintings always include movement or people on the go, and nothing suggests movement like steps. As in the heart of bustling Stockport in Crowther Street, Stockport, Cheshire (1930, Stockport Heritage Services) they provided a location for meetings and gossip – a place for locals to congregate in groups throughout the day, whether on the steps of the Middleton Methodist Church on Morton Street, painted in Old Church and Steps (1960, Private Collection) or the corner shop of Islington Square, depicted in The Corner Shop (1943, Private Collection). It is to the profile of this shop building that the present composition bears a striking similarity, adapted in typical Lowry fashion to emphasise the height of the building, with the tall, elongated windows surrounded by the smoke-blackened bricks. These monotone colours are wonderfully offset by the flashes of bright red and blue that draw the viewer’s eye across the composition, and along past the motor car disappearing into the horizon beyond.