L S Lowry painting set to make over £100,000 when it comes under the hammer this month.

There will be a sense of high anticipation at Dukes Auctioneers of Dorchester later this month when a recently discovered oil painting by Lawrence Stephen Lowry is offered for sale.

Recently discovered in a private house in Merseyside the owner has enjoyed the painting hanging on the wall and has been little concerned with value until a beadyeyed valuer spotted the treasure and the rest as they say is history The painting thought to be amongst the best of Lowry’s ‘mini skirt’ series was executed during the ‘60’s and is a rare thing indeed. Hardly larger than an A4 sheet of paper Lowry paints a leggy young girl head down to the wind wearing a black jacket with red hood, skimpy skirted and painted against his signature worked- over white background. The all important signature appears lower left along with the date 1968. Lawrence Stephen Lowry British (1887-1976) has become a household name in our time through his iconic images of industrial landscapes peopled by ‘matchstick men’, unreal and puppet like, living out  their lives in the landscape he came to love.

Lowry captured these scenes at a time , particularly the ‘20’s when no other artist was painting anything similar. For himself he chose to live away from the limelight eschewing the accolade that the established Art World wanted to bestow on him in later life - a complex and somewhat solitary soul. He lived at home perhaps none too happily, first in Manchester then a moving to Pendlebury a suburb of Salford, where factory chimneys were a familiar sight. After his father’s death his mother took to her bed leaving Lowry as her sole carer. Lowry would suffer throughout his life from the lack of approbation and encouragement for his art that he so craved from his mother, though he cared for her until her death in 1939.

It was then he moved to a modest terraced house  in Cheshire where he lived until his death. Working as a rent collector by day, at night he would climb the stairs to his workroom and lose himself in the imaginary world of his paintings and the ‘match stick’ figures who peopled his familiar mill scenes and industrial landscapes.

His initial drawings were made outdoors rough sketches done on the spot sometimes on a scrap of paper or the back of an envelope. As a people watcher his job would have brought him into close contact with the very subjects of his paintings and the ‘everydayness’ of their lives at work and at play. ‘I saw the industrial scene and I was affected by it. I tried to paint it all the time’ and through this close observation of Life in all its complex aspects Lowry too tried to find meaning to his own life –‘ one man’s search to make sense of who he is and what he is’. A passion for the operas of Bellini and Donizetti and the images of women painted by the Pre -Raphaelite artist Rossetti reveal a more sensual side to Lowrys personality.

One of his most powerful and striking paintings is a portrait of Ann dated 1957 which it is said was the first portrait Lowry had painted in nearly thirty years. Based on the likeness of his godchild Ann Hilder research has not confirmed the identity and it is possible she was an imaginary figure based on all the friends he had known.

The painting to be sold bears more than a passing likeness both in features and palette. Part fantasy part true to life Lowry would certainly have noticed the girls walking the streets of Liverpool and Manchester in the early 60s in their short skirts and the emergence of the ‘Modern and liberated woman’ may well have brought fire to a man brought up within the constraints of a  Victorian childhood who had never married.

There is also similarity to the colours used, reflecting the restrictive palette that Lowry employed throughout his lifetime, “I am a simple man and I use simple materials; ivory black vermilion Prussian blue yellow ochre, flake white and no medium…” This use of colour palette has been a powerful aid when authenticating works attributed to Lowry’s hand, through colour analysis rogue pigments can help prove a painting to be a fake. Provenance too plays a vital role in authentication and is often key to the success of a painting when offered at auction. The girl in the mini skirt (?) has been exhibited at both the Tate Liverpool as well as the Walker Art Gallery a pretty impressive pedigree and essential fodder to a prospective purchaser. So we will wait and see what the outcome of the sale brings laughter or tears, but for sure every time a discovered treasure reappears into the market place a little more is learned about the artist and his oeuvre, and so the thread of careers past just get a little stronger. Places to see Lowry’s work The  Lowry theatre and gallery complex designed by Michael Wilford, is situated on Pier 8 at Salford Quays, , Greater Manchester, now houses the largest collection of his paintings in England, over 400 works which  are owned by Salford City Council. The complex was officially opened on 12 October 2000 by Queen Elizabeth II. The complex was designed by Michael Wilford[7] and constructed by Buro Happold Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG For more information on the sale to be held 17th September 2015 Contact Duke’s Auctioneers Brewery Square Dorchester DT1 1GA Tel 01305 265080 www.dukes-auctions.com Regional salerooms to watch Dukes Auctioneers as above Woolley and Wallis Salisbury Salerooms Ltd 51-61 Castle Street Salisbury SP1 3SU 01722 424500  www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk Tennants AuctioneersThe Auction Centre Leyburn North Yorkshire DL8 58G 01969 623780 email enquiries@tennants-ltd.co.uk Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers Cambridge Road Stansted Mountfitchet  Essex CM24 8GE 01279817778 www.sworder.co.uk Lyon and Turnbull 38 Broughton Place Edinburgh EH1 3RR 0131 5578844

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