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

'Bruegel did the industrial scene as he knew it in his day and I did it in my day, so it's natural that critics make comparisons between his work and mine. It jumps to the eyes. When he was alive he saw the industrial scene around him and he did it. Now four hundred years later I saw the industrial scene around me and I did it. And with him people said "What are you doing these things for? Nobody wants pictures like this," and, funnily enough, they have said the same thing to me' (L.S. Lowry quoted in S. Rohde, L.S. Lowry A Biography, Salford, 1979, p. 101).