CityLife

Preview: Lowry Favourites @ The Lowry

Street Scene 1935

As the definitive museum for all things LS Lowry, The Lowry gallery and theatre is keen to find new and intriguing ways to honour its namesake and Salford’s most famous painter.

And it’s what the visitors have been demanding, too – exhibitions that tell the full story of an artist or performer as comprehensively as they celebrate their achievements.

To do this, the gallery has brought in a substantial body of work from private and public collections around the UK, as well as not often seen examples from the LS Lowry Collection.

Called Lowry Favourites the show includes a series of sound and film installations commissioned to bring the paintings and sketches – and their creator – to life.

One audio appreciation likely to attract a lot of attention when the show opens tomorrow is given by a certain Sir Ian McKellen.

As a big fan of Lowry, Sir Ian says: “Once you have seen the way Mr Lowry sees the crowd, I don’t believe you can ever see a crowd without thinking of him.

“I think that is the mark of a great painter. He makes you see the world afresh.”

Lowry very much lived in the world he painted. He worked from his terraced house on Station Road, Swinton, until his death aged 88, and filled his house with Rossetti masterpieces and his studio with dozens of his own distinctive portraits and landscapes – from brooding industrial wastelands to busy urban scenes.

'Relevant'

His life has been the subject of many books since his death over 30 years ago, and it is that comprehensive approach to looking at the man and his works that the gallery is looking to achieve.

As curator Claire Stewart explains: “Lowry’s work is as relevant as it ever was.

“He was fascinated by the landscape around him and by the people who inhabited it.

“The new displays will include a series of Paintings in Focus, which will help to demonstrate the breadth of Lowry’s vision, and his skills as a painter.”

Several well known pieces have been loaned to the Lowry for the occasion or given prestigious billing in the show, including Coming From the Mill (1930), Seascape (1943), The Funeral Party (1953) and Head Of A Man (1938). Football favourite Going To The Match (1953) will be displayed alongside rare footage of Lowry playing football.

And for many, Street Scene (1935) – on loan from Atkinson Art Gallery in Southport, and painted right in Lowry's heartland on George Street, Pendlebury – will revive long-forgotten memories of the district’s Stump Park, near the Acme Mill.

Star of the show, though, is a collection of Lowry’s personal items, including his distinctive hat, bag and walking stick.

Students of his work will also be delighted to see his paintbrushes, palette knives and a nail he sometimes used to etch his now iconic signature onto his paintings.

From February 13 at The Lowry Gallery, Salford Quays, to June 6, 2010. Free.