Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A. (1887-1976)

Country Road, near Lytham (1952) is a typical Lowry landscape composition, with a centrally-placed road leading away into the far distance. Sometimes these images are empty of people, but in this case there is a group of children and a dog arranged across the middle of the lane by the turning to the farm on the left. Cottages and barns are balanced by banks and fences and a bit of hedge. The quiet rurality of the scene holds no suggestion of the seaside, and yet Lytham is a coastal resort (actually on the mouth of the River Ribble) near Blackpool, where Lowry often drew the yachts. His family holidayed there and his parents even chose it as their honeymoon destination. Yet away from the water, it was quiet enough: a landscape of clumped trees, fields with haystacks and scattered dwellings, as can be seen from the companion painting, Regent Street, Lytham (lot 14), with its fresh and lovely subtlety of colour, its pink and green harmonies.

A.L.