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

Lowry was a frequent visitor to Berwick-upon-Tweed, after an initial stay in 1935, and the town became a source of inspiration to him throughout the 1940s and 50s. The present work depicts a narrow street, populated by local children playing on the pavement, with a woman and a child walking down the road, followed by a dog. The street is reminiscent of that shown in a local postcard of Mill Lane (from the collection of Northumberland Archives Service), dated from around 1910, in which a millworker lifts a sack of flour from a ramp at a window of a mill. The same ramp is visible in the present work.
A view of Marygate, titled by the artist 'A Market Place, Berwick-upon-Tweed', from Cambridgeshire Schools' Art Collection, was sold in these Rooms on 21 May 2009 for £541,250.