Making Work for LS Lowry

Reprinted from May 12,1960, photographer Robert Smithies recounts commissioning a painting from LS Lowry.

Smithies recalls: “The steps rose from ruins of a demolished terrace. A lamp-post, bent with age, pointed from the bottom to the surmounting stock brick façade of yet another chapel – the Primitives… ‘Now I really must paint that! What do you think? Isn’t that the best we’ve seen so far? Look at the way that wall sweeps down to the right. And those old railings…’ Lowry made a sketch… We watched the Boys’ Brigade march to the chapel. A final flourish from the buglers and they dismissed. Some of them came down the steps towards us. ‘Yes, we’ll have lots of figures there. I can’t do without figures in my pictures.'”

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