CURIOUS CASE OF THE UNSOLD LOWRY WORK

Goodness, if only I had invested in a few LS Lowry prints or tiny originals when I started this column 30 years ago! This “marmite” painter – just as many praise his work as view it as amateurish – has been a saleroom darling of late. Even limited edition prints of his famous ‘matchstick men’ are making thousands at auction.

Yet here’s a curious thing. At a recent Tennants sale in Leyburn, a fine Lowry oil, which the artist would have liked, his mother loved and I admired, remained unsold. This was Lowry’s Yachts at Lytham St Annes, which appeared at Tennants on March 20.

Lawrence Stephen Lowry had a fascination with the sea – he sketched and painted seascapes throughout his long career. Juxtaposed with his bustling industrial scenes filled with scurrying figures, Lowry’s seascapes are imbued with a sense of calm and nostalgia for holidays on the North West coast.

Indeed, the artist’s mother, who never liked his industrial work, only once voiced any praise for a painting – another scene of boats at Lytham that Lowry was to hang in his bedroom for the rest of his life.

The Tennants’ painting exemplifies Lowry’s masterly use of flake-white, here employed as both sea and sky merging into one – the yachts providing notes of colour and movement against the shimmering, light-filled sea.

Signed and dated 1951, oil on panel, about 9 by 14 inches, Yachts at Lytham is one of a series of pictures Lowry painted in his beloved Lancashire over 30 years.

It remained unsold against pre-sale hopes of £250,000-£350,000. Today’s collectors/investors probably prefer the artist’s figure-filled industrial townscapes to his serene and painterly seascapes.

Yachts at Lytham St Annes by LS Lowry.