L.S. Lowry

The Pond

1950

© The estate of L.S. Lowry/DACS 2021

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Not on display

Artist: L.S. Lowry 1887–1976
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 1143 × 1524 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1951
Reference: N06032

Display caption

This industrial landscape contains many features typical of Lowry’s work: smoking chimneys, terraced houses, the Stockport Viaduct, and figures swarming through the city’s streets and open spaces. Though seen as a realist, Lowry’s works were largely composed from a variety of repeated motifs, becoming increasingly nostalgic as time went on. The artist said, ‘I hadn’t the slightest idea of what
I was going to put in the canvas when I started the picture but it eventually came out as you see it. This is the way I like working best.’

Gallery label, September 2016

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Catalogue entry

N06032 THE POND 1950

Inscr. ‘L.S. Lowry 1950’ b.r.
Canvas, 45×60 (114·5×152·5).
Chantrey Purchase from the artist through the Lefevre Gallery 1951.
Exh: Lefevre Gallery, March 1951 (1); R.A., 1951 (564).
Lit: Mervyn Levy, L. S. Lowry, A.R.A., 1961, pp.13–14, repr. pl.14 (in colour).
Repr: Maurice Collis, The Discovery of L. S. Lowry, 1951, pl.23; Mervyn Levy, Drawing and Painting for Young People, 1960, facing p.65.

‘This is a composite picture built up from a blank canvas. I hadn't the slightest idea of what I was going to put in the canvas when I started the picture but it eventually came out as you see it. This is the way I like working best’ (letter from the artist, 21 January 1956).

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I

Film and audio

Listen

Michael Symmons Roberts on L.S. Lowry's The Pond

Poet Michael Symmons-Roberts talks about the scene in this work and reveals a personal connection to Lowry