
Penny Day
Head of UK and Ireland
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Sold for £35,250 inc. premium
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Head of UK and Ireland

Head of Department

Director
Provenance
With Lefevre Gallery, London
Sale; Phillips, London, 15 November 1982, lot 185A
Private Collection, U.K.
Literature
Mervyn Levy, The Drawings of L.S. Lowry, Public and Private, Jupiter Books, London, 1976, pl.200 (ill.b&w) (as At Berwick on Tweed)
England's most northerly town Berwick-upon-Tweed was first visited by Lowry in 1935 when, encouraged by his doctor, he sought a break from the pressures of his ailing mother. The town's combination of picturesque cobbled streets, seaside location and working nature appealed so much to Lowry that, following his mother's death in 1939 he considered a move there. A sea front house was selected but the idea did not come to fruition as he remained committed to service as a rent collector for Manchester's Pall Mall company. Lowry did continue to visit Berwick with some regularity and several oils and drawings depicting the town are recorded. The precise location of the present composition is not known although a similar work is simply titled by Lowry as An Old Street. This is not surprising as Lowry was not a topographical artist by nature, he frequently rearranged the world he witnessed to suit his pictorial needs. Mervyn Levy notes of the present work along with a second Berwick view that they 'are studies in the art of composition. The eye is securely held in the picture by virtue of the line of force which in each case lead to the central figures" (Mervyn Levy, The Drawings of L.S. Lowry, Public and Private, Jupiter Books, London, 1976, pl.200).