More on Lowry's Rowing Paintings

About Chris Dodd’s writing from 9 October on L. S. Lowry’s rowing paintings, and Tim Koch’s take in an earlier entry posted today, Greg Denieffe writes:

I have been interested in the Lowry rowing drawings/paintings for some time now. I have prints of bits and pieces that I found over the years and unbelievable as it seems, I was able to find them the day before  yesterday – well all bar one (which from memory, I thought varied a bit from the two pencil drawings below).

I think the Bonhams’ catalogue for the May 2013 sale clarifies some dates and titles:

The present lot is almost certainly the most fully realised pencil drawing by L.S. Lowry of the Agecroft Regatta; at least one other example is known to exist, along with a later and very impressive, large oil painting, The Regatta (1949).

I think this is the one sold by Bonhams in May 2013 which is Agecroft Regatta signed and dated ‘L S Lowry 1942’ (lower right).

This could be the other pencil drawing also called Agecroft Regatta signed and dated ‘L S Lowry 1948’ (lower right).

This is the large oil painting referred to in the Bonhams’ catalogue as a later and very impressive, large oil painting, The Regatta (1949). (This is a scan of the print I have, as I cannot find a copy online).

Another Lowry, Crime Lake, showing pleasure boats on Crime Lake, Oldham, Greater Manchester. The name ‘crime’ is a local word for meadow rather than anything untoward.

I love Lowry’s work and I am a sucker for Brian and Michael’s matchstalk song.

Matchstick (Oars)men

Self-portrait by Lowry.

Tim Koch writes:

Chris Dodd’s recent piece on L.S. Lowry – “Lowry’s Grim Fairy Tale” on HTBS on 9 October –  notes that the Salford artist depicted a sculler in the detail of his painting Industrial Landscape 1950 and also some gentle leisure boating in a work entitled The Pond. There are, however, some other artworks by Lowry that are of even more interest to HTBS readers.

In 1942 or 1948 (depending on your source), he produced a painting entitled Agecroft Regatta showing two coxed fours racing on the River Irwell at Kersal Cell which is 2.5 miles / 4 km north-west of Manchester City Centre. In November 1997, it was sold to a private buyer for £350,000 / $558,400. Lowry also made two 10 inch by 15 inch sketches of the event, both very similar. One was sold in June 2011 for £68,000 / $108,500 and the other in May 2013 for £175,000 / $277,600 (a return of over 150% in two years for the earlier buyer).

One of Lowry’s sketches for Agecroft Regatta (from artdaily.com, here) The old Agecroft Rowing Club boathouse can be seen on the left with the flag flying. A club history is on the Agecroft website.

While it is a slightly more gentle scene than the artist’s usual depiction of harsh industrial life, I have found evidence that Lowry actually made the picture a little more ‘grim’ than he need have done. The website Kersalflats is dedicated to documenting the history of the area of Lower Kersal and in particular the public housing that was built there in the 1960s by the local government. Our interest lies in this page. It has a splendid collection of archive photographs of Agecroft Regatta, many from the 1950s, about ten years after Lowry made his sketches. Three of them are reproduced below as I think that they illustrate the fact that the old site of Agecroft Regatta was more attractive than that depicted by the great man.

Lowry was clearly standing to the left of this picture, looking right. The boathouse with its balcony and flag are quite clear. The house with the pitched roof to the right of the rowing club and the marquee next to that are also plain.

This picture is dated 1953, not many years after Lowry’s drawings. It does not suggest to me that (as the southern English sometimes say) ‘it's grim up north'’.

1953 again. On the left of this picture is the boathouse, the building with the pitched roof and the marquee that Lowry depicted. However, he chose to omit the delightful scene on the right – a verdant riverbank, lush fields, half-timbered buildings and rolling hills. Clearly, these were not ‘Lowryesk’ subjects.


Of course, to criticise art for not being ‘photographically accurate’ is crass. L.S. Lowry's ‘inaccuracies’ were what made him a great artist (and, perhaps, an even greater investment).

Lowry’s Grim Fairy Tale

Rowing historian and writer, Chris Dodd, believes that he has found a sculler in L. S. Lowry’s painting Industrial Landscape 1950 which right now is showing at the Tate Britain in the exhibit "Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life". Is there a sculler just above the bridge centre left of canvas? (Click on image to enlarge.)

Chris Dodd of the River & Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames writes,

L. S. (Lawrence Stephen) Lowry (1887-1976) was an artist who lived in Manchester and Salford all his life. He was a rent collector by day and a painter by night, attending Manchester Art College under the French impressionist Pierre Adolfe Valette, and afterwards at Salford Royal Technical College School of Art. In Lowry’s time Manchester ranked among the world’s top ten industrial cities and Lowry made the stark industrial landscapes of the Industrial Revolution his own while populating his pictures with life he observed in the streets while collecting rents, always with sketch book in hand. Lowry’s pictures now sell for millions, and a large retrospective is now showing at Tate Britain in London, "Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life", which will end on 20 October 2013.

The Pond, from Tate Britain.

Manchester didn’t rank as a major rowing place, although Agecroft Rowing Club (now in Salford docks) braved the dank River Irwell through the centre of the city from Victorian days, and the world’s great professional scullers, such as Ned Hanlan, took on the top Mancunians, such as Mark Addy, from time to time. Lowry’s sporting observations seem to be restricted to football (Bolton Wanderers supporter), cricket on waste ground and children’s street games, but I detect that one painting in the Tate show – Industrial Landscape 1950 – contains what looks like a sculler on the waterway that winds through it. Much more famous from a rowing point of view is Lowry’s The Pond, depicting a large municipal boating lake, which is also in the exhibition. Every industrial, mill and seaside town in Britain worth its salt had a boating lake from Victorian times – and many still do. For lots of Lowry canvases, visit Tate Britain or their website, here.