Laurence Stephen Lowry was the heart of Salford, capturing the way the city and its people used to look.
Although his name is synonymous with Salford, he was actually born in Manchester on November 1 1887, in Barrett Street, Stretford. His father, Robert, worked as a clerk in an estate agent’s office, while his mother, Elizabeth Hobson, was a talented pianist. Laurence was 12 when his parents ran into financial difficulties and moved to Pendlebury in 1909.
Lowry’s fame continues today, with some of his paintings hanging in the Lowry building named after him in MediaCity. Countless people have been inspired by his work and many artists have imitated his style.
His unique work captured the disappearing world of mills, factories and smoky skylines.
Salford-born artist Philip Westcott, who has seen Lowry paintings all his life, said: “Coming from Salford I mean, obviously, you’re surrounded by Lowry, surrounded by his images. It’s got to have some influence. I find that really what he did inspires me as well as the person capturing that time.”
He worked for most of his life in full-time employment as a rent collector, which caused many critics to dismiss him as a Sunday painter. But to this day, his popularity remains strong. Phillip said: “I think I used some of his ideas. I mean, one of the first paintings I was doing was Salford market, having seen him.”
By 1915, Lowry began attending evening classes at Salford School of Art, based at the Royal Technical College on the edges of Peel Park and the park and the views across from the technical college windows appear frequently in his work.
The best-known story Lowry told of how he became interested in the industrial scene was when he missed a train at Pendlebury station, and he saw the Acme Company’s mill turning out. Lowry said: “I watched this scene, which I’d looked at many times without seeing, with rapture.”
In the 1920s, Lowry developed his theme of industrial scenes and he exhibited widely with many other societies. This included the New English Art Club and the Society of Modern Painters as well as in Paris, but no works were sold and he continued to attend drawing classes in the evenings.
By the 1930s, he had produced his most characteristic mill scene from what he had witnessed in Pendlebury. Called Coming from the Mill, it is now in The Lowry.
When Lowry grew tired of landscapes, he tried other subjects. His work focused on small groups of people and individuals with little to no landscape setting. He said that the individuals were all real people going about their day-to-day lives. He never completely abandoned his industrial landscape, and small, loosely painted mill scenes existed until 1976, when he stopped painting altogether.
Lowry, who never married, continued to draw even into his old age and his characters sometimes took on a cartoon-like appearance. However, his most personal work only came to light after his death when private paintings kept by him were discovered. Lowry died of pneumonia aged 88 at Woods Hospital in Glossop on February 23 1976, after having a stroke in his home.
Half a century later, his story is still told, and his paintings still attract huge audiences looking to see how he depicted Salford in days gone by.
