An early painting by L.S. Lowry, acquired directly from the artist by an admirer in 1926 for £10, has sold at auction in London for £805,200 (including buyer's premium).
The painting, Going to the Mill, which has been in the hands of the same family for the last century, is believed to be one of the earliest sales made by the Stretford-born painter.
It was sold today (Friday 02 May) as part of fine art auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull's prestigious MODERN MADE sale at The Mall Galleries in the heart of London.
The piece was originally acquired directly from Lowry by the Manchester Guardian's literary editor, A.S. (Arthur) Wallace, who used three of Lowry's works to illustrate a special supplement to mark Manchester Civic Week in October 1925.
Going to the Mill is marked on the back as being £30, but Lowry let Wallace have it for £10. Worried that he had overcharged his friend, the artist threw in an additional work, The Manufacturing Town, which the Wallace family sold several years ago.
L.S. Lowry painted Going to the Mill in 1925, but it wasn’t until his one-man exhibition nearly in 1939 that he achieved widespread fame for his portrayal of everyday industrial scenes in and around Manchester peopled by his distinctive figures.
The painting features the classic Lowry view of a mill and chimney behind, a domed roof and a wall of windows – all foregrounded by scurrying ‘matchstick’ millworkers.
Going to the Mill was recently on long-term loan to Pallant House Gallery, Chichester before the family decided to sell the painting.
Simon Hucker, Lyon & Turnbull’s Modern & Contemporary Art Specialist and Head of Sale said:
“We’re absolutely delighted by the price achieved for this exceptional, early painting by Lowry, bought from him when he was a virtual unknown. There are few artists who become a household name in Britain and Lowry definitely falls into this category.
This is a painting shows that Lowry at his conceptual best – no naïve painter of ‘matchstick men’, as the old pop song went. Instead he is an artist of true dexterity who is making deliberate formal choices, abstracting the figure in order to express an idea about loneliness and isolation within the teeming city.
"Going to the Mill is the epitome of a 1920s Lowry, the period when he becomes a unique voice in British art. It is especially rare is for a painting such as this to have been in one collection for one year shy of a century and we are delighted to have played a small part in its history."
Image credit: David Parry
