To think of Lowry is to conjure a world of chimneys, factories, terraced houses and bustling crowds. His uncompromising vision and steadfast commitment to the industrial north of England and the lives of its inhabitants represents one of the most significant and iconic artistic outputs in 20^th century Britain. These paintings occupy a central place within the public imagination, alongside the works of Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud (of whom Lowry was an early admirer) or Banksy. In A Town Square, making its first auction appearance, we have one of the most important early representations of Lowry’s now famous industrial landscapes.

It was Lowry’s engagement with industrialisation that the great critic Herbert Read found ‘quite extraordinary’, that ‘in an industrial country like this, no-one…no painter of any significance has ever taken the industrial landscape as a subject, and what you might call industrial art doesn’t exist.' For Read this is precisely what makes Lowry ‘original’.(Herbert Read on the BBC Third Programme, 26th November 1966, quoted in T.G. Rosenthal, L.S. Lowry, The Art and the Artist, Unicorn Press, Norwich, 2010, p.24.). The infinite variety of subjects that he was able to find in the subject over five decades is quite remarkable. The result is an exceptional and vital body of work that unflinchingly portrays Britain’s post-industrial decline. This is not the ‘green and pleasant’ land so often favoured by and more associated with Britain’s artists. Significantly, despite the seemingly local situation of the works, Lowry’s pictorial invention goes beyond this, offering visions of industrial life that can resonate globally.

Rather than bind himself to specific topography, Lowry used constituent parts to create huge sweeping panoramas or small intimate scenes, but which all retained the undeniable feeling of authenticity, the mark of an artist who understood how the physical backdrop shaped the lives of the people he painted. Indeed, as his later paintings became more and more concerned with looking at people, especially those on the edges of society, the architectural setting began to drift away. However, when the two elements are presented in unison, the images he produced have a feeling of life and movement that must be at the heart of his enduring popularity. As he later recalled:

A Town Square is such a painting – a townscape populated with Lowry’s distinctive figures, a mass of people at first glance but whose individual characteristics come to life upon closer inspection. On the far left, a little girl with her long pony tail stands with her companion; a man reads a newspaper whilst another shakes his friend in apparent anger; on the right, two men are dancing a jig in front of a large crowd huddled around an orator. In the centre, a behatted gentleman stands looking out directly at the viewer - it is tempting to envisage him as Lowry, observing all before him. In the background the unmistakable silhouette of chimneys and smoke atmospherically frames the composition whilst in the mid-ground, the more intimate architecture of high street shops and houses delineates the square.

The composition itself is significant as it reveals very interesting questions about Lowry’s working practice. Dated to 1927, A Town Square belongs to a rare group of paintings executed that year including Coming out from School (Tate collects ion) and Dwelling, Ordsall Lane, Salford (Tate collects ion); however, it is also extremely close in composition to Our Town, a celebrated image now in the collects ion of Rochdale Art Gallery. Our Town is dated 1943 and always had an element of oddity about it as it is painted in a much earlier style - the emergence of A Town Square now confirms why this is so. With very few alterations, Lowry has used this same composition over two decades later clearly feeling that its character still had a very valid message within his work.

The re-use of a favourite composition was typical of Lowry’s practice and highlights how solidly Lowry’s vision was set within his own imagination and how early that vision was established. He spent hours walking the streets of Manchester in his daily job as a rent collects or and would often stop to sketch interesting characters or buildings that caught his eye. Later, under the glow of his electric light at home, he would work up these memories and sketches into larger scale compositions - thus similar groups of people that particularly appealed to him often appear in several paintings, often separated by many years as he returned to earlier sketchbooks for inspiration later in life.

It was this revelationary moment as a young artist that set Lowry’s course, and placed him firmly in the modern tradition established in late 19^th century France – the painting of ‘modern life’. Lowry was in part taking up the mantle set by Manet, Pissarro, Degas and van Gogh in their recording of modernity from the 1870s – the parks, boulevards, tramcars and grittier aspects of life on the edges of the city. Living within the small streets of Pendlebury dominated by factories, mills and chimneys, Lowry saw an aspect of modernity that needed to be painted and which no other artist working in Britain had seriously engaged with.

Lowry’s association with Impressionism stemmed from his encounter with the French painter Adolphe Valette, his tutor while a student at Manchester School of Art. His influence was significant:

Atmosphere was a crucial element of Valette’s paintings, recording Manchester in a way not dissimilar to Monet in London. Atmosphere was also fundamental for Lowry, keenly felt in the modulated colours and heavy, smog filled sky of A Town Square. Unlike the more picturesque elements of Valette and the Impressionists however, Lowry gives a more matter-of-fact rendering; he de-mystifies.

It was through Bernard Taylor, an early supporter of Lowry, that the artist arrived at his technique of dry, abrasive surfaces - chalky-white and shadowless, and which creates such a distinctive sense of atmosphere. He modified the approach through the 1920s and A Town Square is one of the earliest examples of his success with it.

Outside of a few early patrons, public and commercial recognition was slow to arrive for Lowry. It was not until 1939, aged fifty-two, that he finally had gallery representation through the Lefevre Gallery, and the so-called ‘discovery’ of Lowry that followed. However, while critics in England may have been slow to recognise Lowry, France was quicker to recognise his artistic authenticity.

Over a number of years from 1928, Lowry submitted work to the Paris Salon des Artistes Français without a single rejection. This included the present work, exhibited in Paris in 1928 - affirming his reputation amongst the European artistic community as ‘a master of the industrial scene’. In 1931, he was also included in the Who’s Who of European Painters, Dictionnaire Biographique des Artistes Contemporains 1910-1930 - a rare acknowledgement for a British artist and listed a few pages away from Maillol, Manet and Matisse.

A Town Square perfectly demonstrates why Lowry was valued by France early and in t.mes by Britain, whose now widespread and long-lasting appreciation has made up for our slower recognition. The painting’s re-emergence allows us to value and recognise again the significance of Lowry’s career, encapsulated in this important early example. Nearly a century on, the painting still resonates powerfully with contemporary audiences – test.mes nt to the integrity of his vision.