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

‘Now he had a new obsession: his single figures ... who had lived for so long in the shadow of the mills emerged at last from their background to stand alone, as he stood alone. If he saw them as odd, it was because he felt himself to be odd; if he saw them as different, it was because he felt himself to be different’

(S. Rohde, A Private Life of L.S. Lowry, London, 1979, p. 241).