L.S. Lowry

The Old House, Grove Street, Salford

1948

© The estate of L.S. Lowry

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Not on display

Artist
L.S. Lowry 1887–1976
Medium
Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions
Support: 457 × 610 mm
frame: 610 × 760 × 110 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Purchased 1951
Reference
N05992

Display caption

This picture of 1948 was based on a pencil drawing of 1927 and was made as true to the drawing as possible. A distinctive characteristic of Lowry's work is his use of a white background and the elimination of shadows which gives his pictures a naive and dreamlike quality. He started using pure flake white as a base for his paintings in the 1920s. This was a result of an argument with his teacher Bernard D. Taylor, who thought Lowry's pictures were too dark. Lowry later discovered, to his pleasure, that the flake white turned creamy grey-white over the years.

Gallery label, September 2004

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Catalogue entry

N05992 THE OLD HOUSE, GROVE STREET, SALFORD 1948
 
Inscr. ‘L. S. Lowry 1948’ b.l.
Canvas, 18×24 (45·5×61); there is a black framing line at top, bottom and right-hand side.
Purchased from the artist through the Lefevre Gallery (Knapping Fund) 1951.
Exh: Lefevre Gallery, March 1951 (37).

Based on a careful pencil drawing made in 1927; ‘the picture is as like the drawing as I could make it in 1948’ (letter from the artist, 21 January 1956).

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I

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