
Ingram Reid
Director
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£15,000 - £20,000
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Provenance
Private Collection, U.K.
Lowry and Riley were great friends and used to go sketching together, and Riley recalled how his interpretation of what they saw was often very different, with Lowry putting his own distinct spin on the scene in front of them. They went to the Lake District together and after a day of sketching by Wasswater, a particularly deep and dark lake, Riley glanced over to find to his surprise that Lowry had included a tall, black chimney emerging from the water. As Riley recalled: 'Mr Lowry looked at me and said: "You can't see it, can you?" I shook my head. "No," I said. "I can," he announced, with a grin. And I do believe he could.' (Harold Riley on L. S. Lowry, quoted in Shelley Rohde, L S Lowry A Life, Haus Publishing Limited, London, 2007, p. 156). This pair of double portraits is a rare record of this special artistic friendship.