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  • Posts Tagged ‘L.S. Lowry’

    SUNDAY AFTERNOON BY LOWRY A HIGHLIGHT AT CHRISTIE’S SALE

    Wednesday, February 21st, 2024
    L.S. Lowry – Sunday Afternoon (1957)

    L.S. Lowry’s Sunday Afternoon (1957) will be a highlight at Christie’s Modern British and Irish Art evening sale in London on March 20. The epic and highly populated industrial landscape exemplifies some of the most widely celebrated themes, landmarks and motifs from Lowry’s oeuvre and is raree in a single composition. It is thought to be one of around 12 works created on this, his largest scale. Almost all similar paintings of this size held in museums including The Lowry, Salford; Tate, London; and National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. It has not been exhibited publicly in 57 years and is estimated at £4,000,000-6,000,000. The work is from the collection of Sir Keith and Lady Showering.

    Keith Showering’s career was founded on a 300-year-old Somerset family cider making business and the meteoric success of Babycham. By 1975 at the age of 45 Showering was Chairman and CEO of Allied Breweries, Europe’s biggest drinks business, becoming the youngest ever chairman and CEO of a FTSE 100 company. In 1981 he was knighted for services to industry and that same year he took over as Master of the Worshipful Company of Brewers. By the time of his sudden death in 1982 he was on the board of a wide variety of companies and arts organisations. 

    NEW WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR L. S. LOWRY AT CHRISTIE’S

    Wednesday, October 19th, 2022
    L.S. Lowry’s Going to the Match sold for £7,846,500

    There was a new world auction record for L S Lowry when Going to the Match made £7.8 million at Christie’s in London this evening. It went to the Lowry Gallery in Salford. The painting was offered by The Players Foundation with proceeds being used to allow the organisation to continue its charitable work in, amongst other things, assisting with those who have dementia and relieving poverty amongst current or former professional players. It was painted for an exhibition in 1953, sponsored by The Football Association, where Lowry won first prize.

    Frying Pan Still Life by William Scott made £765,000 at the Modern British and Irish art evening auction, which achieved a total of £20,564,100. Bidders from 11 countries across four continents registered for the sale.

    (See post on antiquesandartireland.com for October 4, 2022)

    MASTERFUL APPROACH TO COMPOSITION IN THIS WILLIAM SCOTT WORK

    Tuesday, October 4th, 2022
    WILLIAM SCOTT, R.A. (1913-1989) – Frying Pan – Still Life, 1947. UPDATE; THIS MADE £756,000

    Frying Pan – Still Life by William Scott at Christie’s Modern British and Irish Art evening sale in London on October 19 dates to 1947. It is emblematic of Scott’s approach to painting following the Second World War. At first glance, the simple arrangement of culinary objects speaks of the Northern Irish austerity that Scott experienced in his youth. Concurrently, however, the artist’s sophisticated exploration into the arrangement of colour, form and spatial geometry reflects a preoccupation that ensued throughout the artist’s celebrated career.  According to the catalogue notes in this work Scott demonstrates a masterful approach to composition – the ovoid shapes that reverberate across the canvas work in harmony with the linear diagonals that permeate the scene. The alignment of the eggs, positioned carefully on the table-top, create a subtle dynamism as they lead the eye towards the frying pan, whose crisp silhouette against the rich yolk-yellow of the background foreshadows the use of the motif as the most recognisable icon of his later work. The estimate is £300,000-£500,000.

    The sale will be led by L.S. Lowry’s Going to the Match, which is being offered by The Players Foundation. Estimated at £5,000,000-8,000,000, the painting is poised to set a new world auction record for the artist.  The catalogue is online.

    LAURENCE STEPHEN LOWRY, R.A. (1887-1976) – Going to the Match. UPDATE: THIS MADE £7,846,500 A NEW WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR LOWRY

    AN IRISH LOWRY AT SOTHEBY’S MADE IN BRITAIN

    Wednesday, March 9th, 2022
    Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A. – Hosiery & Factory. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £32,670

    Hosiery and Factory by L.S. Lowry comes up as lot 114 at Sotheby’s Made in Britain sale online, which runs from today until March 15. It is signed and dated 1970. The artist also signed the backboard – L S Lowry and inscribed In a Fishing Village about/ 30 miles north of Ireland. The estimate is £30,000-40,000. Sotheby’s say the sale offers something for everyone at every price point. The auction  is led by a selection of Damien Hirst prints, exceptional ceramics by Damie Lucie Rie and Gwyn Hanssen Piggot and a trio of beautiful Alfred Wallis works from the family of artist Basil Rakoczi, who was a prominent member of the Irish White Stag art group.

    LOWRY’S ONLY KNOWN PAINTING OF AN AUCTION ROOM AT SOTHEBY’S

    Tuesday, October 19th, 2021

    L.S. Lowry’s only known painting of an auction room is to make its debut at Sotheby’s in London on November 23. The Auction is estimated at £1.2-£1.8 million. The bustling scene characteristic of the artist is populated by familiar characters, and even a dog on a lead. The Auction transports the viewer into the centre of the action, with the auctioneer on the rostrum poised to bring the gavel down.  As early as the 1920s, Lowry touched on the subject of auctions with a drawing titled Selling Up the Old Antiques Shop. Another painting, Jackson’s Auction and Saleroom from 1952, depicts the exterior of the auction house in Manchester, with furniture amassed outside. In The Auction, this longstanding interest comes to its apex, and the viewer is shown the full glory of a sale in action for the first and only time

    Executed on a large-scale in 1958, the work has never been offered at auction, and was acquired by the present owners over two decades ago. It was exhibited at Lowry’s landmark retrospective at the Royal Academy in 1976 and was last shown at AMNUA in Nanjing in China in 2014. It will be a highlight at the Modern British Art auction.

    L.S. LOWRY’S ‘THE AUCTION’  UPDATE: THIS MADE £2,556,000

    LOWRY WORK OF CROWDS GATHERING FOR RUGBY MATCH

    Friday, April 30th, 2021

    A rare and early rugby painting by L S Lowry comes up at Sotheby’s inaugural British Art: Modern/ Contemporary live-stream auction in London on June 29. Painted in 1928, Going to the Match is among the earliest known depiction of one of Lowry’s most iconic and timeless subjects – that of spectators thronging to a sporting occasion. Famed for his images of football, it is significant that it is a rugby match he chose to paint first, no doubt testament to the importance of the Rugby League to Northern communities. The red flag seen flying by the ground, as well as the red scarves worn by several of the crowd members, hints at the Salford Red Devils – Lowry’s local team. It is estimated at £2-£3 million.

    L.S. Lowry – Going to the Match

    LOWRY HIGHLIGHTS MODERN BRITISH ART SALE

    Monday, March 1st, 2021

    More than 20 works by L.S. Lowry will highlight the Modern British Art sale at Christie’s on March 2. They range from seascapes and crowd scenes to portraits including Man in a Trilby from the estates of L.S. Lowry and Carol Ann Lowry. There is work by Pauline Boty, Patrick Caulfield, Peter Blake, Michael Craig-Martin’s and the St Ives School is represented by Terry Frost ,Roger Hilton, Ben Nicholson and Alfred Wallis.

    Ben Nicholson, 1946 (Tibetan) (estimate: £100,000-150,000) and
    L.S. Lowry, Man in a Trilby (1960, estimate: £150,000-250,000). UPDATE: THE NICHOLSON MADE £118,750 AND THE LOWRY SOLD FOR £150,000

    ONLINE ONLY ART RECORD AT CHRISTIE’S

    Friday, July 3rd, 2020

    L.S. Lowry’s Coming from the Match has achieved the highest price for a work in an online only sale at Christie’s. It made £2,051,250 at a sale devoted to original paintings and drawings by L.S. Lowry entitled People Watching. The small oil on canvas had been estimated at £500,000-800,000. The auction, which has just ended, realised a total of £4.6 million.

    A RECORD PRICE FOR A PORTRAIT BY L.S. LOWRY

    Wednesday, November 18th, 2015

    L.DS. Lowry - Father and Two Sons.

    L.DS. Lowry – Father and Two Sons.

    A 1950 work by one of Britain’s best loved artists – L.S. Lowry’s Father and Two Sons – sold for a record £1.6 million at Sotheby’s in London last evening. The work is considered to be his most important portrait and offers a timeless glimpse into street life.  It sold for £1,625,000, a record price for a portrait by the artist.  From the collection of Frank Cohen and was owned by Monty Bloom, a key Lowry patron in the later part of his career.

    Frank Cohen commented: “I’ve always championed Modern British art and I passionately believe that Lowry ranks alongside other great painters like Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. I’m not alone in that opinion – I recall being in the Wolseley, London, when I spotted Lucian sitting at his usual corner table. We’d known each other over the years and got talking. One of the questions I posed was ‘who are your favourite artists?’ to which he replied, without hesitation, ‘Auerbach and Lowry’. And Freud knew a thing or two about painting as we all know…

    I bought Father and Two Sons back in the late 90s as a present to myself after selling my DIY business. It was a lot of money at that time but I couldn’t resist as it had always reminded me of the very first job I had after leaving school at 15. I worked for Perring’s Furniture stores, which was run by Abi Stolberg and Louis Rosenblatt, as the ‘tea–boy’ in the offices, earning £2, 14 shillings and seven-pence a week. When the boss used to arrive at work – he was the clerk of the company – he’d walk in every morning with his bowler hat on, flanked on either side by two minders with winged collars. That image stayed with me forever until I found this Lowry”.

    Sotheby’s sale of Modern and Post War British Art brought a record of £389,000 for Peter Lanyon for Dry Wind, an oil on canvas.  There was also a record for a work on paper by Dame Barbara Hepworth, whose Forms in Movements (Circle) sold for £257,000.

    MASTERPIECE FAIR PREVIEWS IN LONDON TODAY

    Wednesday, June 24th, 2015

    The range at Masterpiece which opens in London today – from the Hongs of Canton in 1772 to Maverick House, Boston in 1837 to Crowther Street in Stockport in 1964 – is vast.  Among many highlights is an uncatalogued work by Claude Monet at Richard Green; one of the large known fancy vivid yellow diamonds weighing over 114 carats by Symbolic and Chase; a 45 metre tall painting by Robert Delaunay whose wife Sonia is the focus of a retrospective now on at Tate Modern and The Fibonacci – the 600,000th piano by Steinway and Sons, who are Fair Partners.  Masterpiece runs from June 25 to July 1 at The Royal Hospital in Chelsea, with a preview day on June 24.  Here are some masterpieces:

    Robert Salmon, Maverick House, Boston, Illuminated on 13th November 1837 in Honour of the Whig Victories in New York at John Mitchell

    Robert Salmon, Maverick House, Boston, Illuminated on 13th November 1837 in Honour of the Whig Victories in New York at John Mitchell

    he Hongs of Canton, c1772. An exceptionally large panoramic scroll, gouache on silk laid on paper, 91.5x276cm. at Martyn Gregory

    The Hongs of Canton, c1772. An exceptionally large panoramic scroll, gouache on silk laid on paper, 91.5x276cm. at Martyn Gregory

    Laurence Stephen Lowry, Crowther Street Stockport, 1964, Oil on Canvas. Courtesy of Richard Green.

    Laurence Stephen Lowry, Crowther Street Stockport, 1964, Oil on Canvas. Courtesy of Richard Green.