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

Discussing his depiction of figures in his work, the artist commented 'I wanted to paint myself into what absorbed me ... Natural figures would have broken the spell of it, so I made my figures half unreal. Some critics have said that I turned my figures into puppets, as if my aim were to hint at the hard economic necessities that drove them. To say the truth, I was not thinking very much about the people. I did not care for them the way a social reformer does. They are part of the private beauty that haunted me. I loved them and the houses in the same way: as part of a vision' (see M. Howard, op. cit., p. 123).