L.S. Lowry's paintings of the 1930s have an intensity in their presentation of incident that is quite distinctive, even within his oeuvre. Whilst the works of the previous decade had laid the foundations for what would come to be seen as the archetypal Lowry image, it was in the 1930s that these elements were brought together and began to pulse with life.

Road Over the Hill, like all great Lowry paintings, captures a moment. In the foreground a cluster of four figures immediately draws the viewers gaze. One of these figures leans in, and hand on hip, grasps another by the shoulder. The temperament of this meeting is ambiguous, perhaps it is a warm greeting between friends or perhaps an antagonistic gesture with a brawl about to break out in the busy street. A number of figures stop to observe and congregate around the scene much as Lowry asks us the viewer to look and observe.

In spite of the potential drama unfolding Road Over the Hill demonstrates Lowry's fascination with the quieter aspects of the urban environment, depicting unhurried scenes populated with people going about the daily lives. Indeed, for Lowry it was the combination of place and people that gave his paintings something that brought them to life, and thus the places where people gathered, the courts, alleys, ginnels and street corners became the focus of Lowry's attention.

The present work is reminiscent and evocative of a Sunday afternoon with people milling in their local street enjoying the company of their community. There are children kicking a football back and forth and others with hoops in hand, a man walking his dog at the top of the hill and there are groups deep in conversation across the canvas. In the centre right of the composition is the ghostly mirage of a great mill which serves as a reminder of the hard industrial life that people had to endure during the working week.

The location of the present work, whilst rooted in Lowry's experiences of industrial Manchester and its surrounding towns, is most likely to an amalgamation and re-imagining of this urban landscape. Manchester is not the hilliest of cities but the surrounding Lancashire and Cheshire towns such as Stockport and Clitheroe often had steep house lined streets that Lowry would have seen and walked. Indeed the dynamic composition of the present work bears similarities to Crowther Street, Stockport, 1930 (Stockport Heritage Services). Road Over the Hill demonstrates Lowry's developing understanding of composition and architecture as the backdrop to human life and is punctuated with quirky idiosyncrasies such as a wonky lampost or wall lined pavement that are the unmistakable hallmarks of Lowry's work.