L.S Lowry was an English artist whose paintings and drawings often depicted Pendlebury where he lived and worked for 40 years. The subjects for his work were right on his doorstep. Lowry is most famous for painting scenes depicting life in the industrial areas of Northern England during the mid 1900's. He developed his own distinct style of painting most recognisable for the human figures within his work. These have been referred to as match stick men. As well as his industrial landscapes he has also produced many paintings showing un-populated landscapes, portraits and other marionette paintings which were found only after his death. Lowry did not want to tell people about his work because he didn't want them to think of him as a spare-time painter. During the 1920's and 30's when he was collecting ideas surrounding industry he saw many things throughout the city; children playing, people going to and returning from work, gossip on the door steps, incidents and market places. But what he saw was dramatically changed due to the blitz in World War II. He commented 'I saw the industrial scene and I was affected by it. I tried to paint it all the time. I tried to paint the industrial scene as best I could. It wasn't easy. Well, a camera could have done the scene straight off.'
Lowry believed that drawing was just as hard as painting; he worked the surface of his initial sketches by smudging and erasing the pencil lines to build the atmosphere. He was also always recording quick sketches on the stop using what ever he had to hand at the time. Lowry worked from his composed sketches in his painting studio at his home taking particular care when adding in the figures. Another way of working which was developed later in his career was painting straight onto the canvas or board not knowing what it was going to look like. He called these 'dreamscapes'. His use of colour was very basic in terms of tone. He would mix oil paint on his pallet and paint onto a white background. He often used ivory, black, vermilion red, prussian blue, yellow ochre and white. He did not add a medium to these colours as he liked to work with the raw oil paint. To paint his ideas he would use brushes, his fingers and also sticks or nails to create different textures.
Due to his paintings being so stylised and often showing lack of weather/ emotion critics have characterised his work as being quite naive however this is the complete opposite opinion to those of the galleries which display his work. He was often referred to as being a 'Sunday' painter. Lowry quoted 'If people call me a Sunday painter I'm a Sunday painter who paints every day of the week!'. He was simply looking for his own style of painting and way of drawing.
I chose to look at the paintings by L.S Lowry in particular his famous industrial scenes of people, in relation to my drawing project. He is able to show movement and life through the use of static emotionless figures. I admire his skill to do this. But also in comparison like my ideas the people within his ideas do not seem to have faces or expression often having their backs to the viewer.
(Coming out of school, 1927, oil on wood, 34.7 x 53.9 cm)
