Lowry, L. S. (Laurence Stephen Lowry), 1887–1976, English painter and printmaker, b. Manchester, studied Municipal College of Art (later Manchester Metropolitan Univ.). He is especially known for realistic if somewhat naively portrayed cityscapes of industrial NW England, where he lived and worked as a rent collector. He enjoyed his greatest success in Britain, and was largely unknown outside the United Kingdom. Lowry's factories, mills, and residential buildings are portrayed in somber colors, the looming buildings often contrasted with his typical “matchstick men,” stylized, silhouetted black figures. He also painted similar rural landscapes and seascapes as well as portraits. He was extremely prolific, and produced about a thousand oils and thousands of drawings and prints, mainly lithographs. The largest collection of his works is at the Lowry Center in his hometown, Salford, adjacent to Manchester.
See memoirs by D. Sieja (1983) and T. Marshall (1987); biographies by A. Andrews (1977) and S. Rohde (rev. ed. 1999); studies by M. Levy (1975 and 1976), J. Spalding (1988), S. Rohde (1999), M. Leber and J. Sandling (1987 and 2000), and M. Howard (2000); T. G. Rosenthal, L. S. Lowry: The Art and the Artist (2013); T. J. Clark and A. M. Wagner, ed., Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life (Tate Britain catalog, 2013).
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