Lowry paintings more than match sales estimates
Industrial scenes by artist L S Lowry collected by best-selling author Frederick Forsyth raised a total of more than £1.7m at auction today.
Nine bleak scenes populated by Lowry’s trademark matchstick men went under the hammer at Christie’s in London after being bought over a period of 13 years.
The collection exceeded all expectations, selling well over the combined estimate of £1m.
Northern River Scene, a painting inspired by a commission to paint the city of Lincoln and signed and dated 1959, reached nearly £500,000.
The picture, which Lowry tried to make into a trademark ‘‘industrial’’ picture by swapping the city’s cathedral for a factory with a tall tower, reached £443,750.
The work, which portrays the river as a tool of work rather than something of natural beauty, had been expected to fetch no more than £300,000.
A painting bought by Forsyth from entertainer Max By graves - The Town Hall, Middlesbrough (1962) - sold for £256,750, more than £50,000 above its most optimistic estimate.
A painting called The Bus Stop also fetched £256,750, while A Narrow Street was sold for £245,750.
Industrial Scene, one of 16 works commissioned for reproduction to decorate Britain’s 250 Lyons’ tearooms, sold for £179,750.
A spokeswoman for Christie’s said this afternoon that nothing was known yet as to who had bought the paintings.
The nine works had been built up by Forsyth - best known for The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File - but he had decided to sell to ‘‘put something new on the walls’’.
The former reporter recently described the way Lowry’s figures had intrigued him.
‘‘All seem to be locked in thought, some pressing forward upon a personal errand, some gazing melancholy into the distance, others about to say something to the figure next to him,’’ he said.
Lawrence Stephen Lowry specialised in industrial and slum landscapes inhabited with matchstick figures and was the inspiration for the pop song
‘‘Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs’’, which hit the charts two years after Lowry’s death in 1974.
He was born and spent most of his life in Manchester where he worked as a clerk, using his spare time for art lessons and paintings.
Similarly, Forsyth was virtually penniless and had no job when, in 1971, he succeeded in finding a publisher for The Day of the Jackal.
