Himself often awkward in social situations, Lowry observed with fascination the human interactions of urban life and recorded t.mes and again the various encounters that he came across. Yet, rarely, if ever, do we detect any sense of togetherness or companionship amongst his characters. In fact his depictions of groups often emit a greater air of loneliness and isolation than the paintings of lone individuals. The present work is a case in point – in the clear disconnect between the central figures, who are labeled a family by Lowry, making their disengagement with one another all the more poignant. 


There is no doubt that Lowry's fascination with the notion of loneliness was intimately tied to an acute awareness of his own isolation and that his paintings can often be considered as a metaphor for his own relationships. As Michael Howard has suggested, Lowry would paint these types almost as a therapeutic act, 'as a means of populating his own loneliness, and also as a kind of ritual act that would keep the monsters at bay.' (Michael Howard, Lowry: A Visionary Artist, Lowry Press, Salford Quays, 2000, p.171). As with his landscapes, which are rarely, if ever, topographically accurate, Lowry's paintings of people are not just records of contemporary life but are heavily imbued with the artist's emotional response to their, and, in fact, to his own situation. Lowry succeeds in holding up a magnifying glass to the uncomfortable reality of the human condition and highlighting the inadequacy of so many of life's social interactions. It is this combination of 'portraiture' and psychological stat.mes nt that lends a t.mes less resonance to his work and instills so much of his apparently mundane subject matter with an uncommon profoundness.


There is a theatrical quality to this painting. A key influence for Lowry was a play: Hindle Wakes, first performed in Manchester in 1912. In many ways it is the original ‘kitchen sink’ drama, centred around a holiday romance between Fanny Hawthorn and Alan Jeffcote that crosses the class divide, albeit in an unexpected way (Alan is the mill owner’s son, but it is Fanny who calls the shots). Lowry’s Family Group could easily depict a set from one of the early productions of Hindle Wakes, with its bare room, furnished with the very bare essentials of domestic life. The young boy stares out, as if about to address the audience. The other characters seem lost in thought, but perhaps preparing to say their lines. The mother, seated in profile at the centre of the work and whose presence is the most compelling, has perhaps said her piece, but it is her silence, her desperation, that binds the rest of them.


Lowry’s interest in contemporary – and often avant-garde – theatre is underplayed in accounts of his life and work, especially by those who see his art as a relatively straight rendition of life in the industrial North. Lowry, though, never painted just what he saw; like a playwright he distils elements of the real world. His genius lies in the fact that these distillations, these constructions, are so perfectly executed, and with such consistency over his career, that they feel altogether real. As dark as Lowry’s themes may be – poverty, hunger, unemployment - in all his subjects he finds the strength that comes from being part of the industrial north.