1962 - Three Men

Three Men 1962

Pencil

33.7 x 24.1 cm

Sold [May 2013] for £26,250 including premium

Signed and Dated 'LS Lowry 1962' (lower right)

PROVENANCE

With The Stone Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne

During the 1960's Lowry was particularly interested in exploring single figures and the relationship between groups of figures in his art. The majority of these works were executed around Manchester and Salford where the artist frequently exercised his voyeuristic tendencies as an incessant watcher of life and the observer of people. 

In Three Men, which dates to 1962, Lowry presents a trio of characters all of whom display differing emotions. The figures are dressed in the clumsy and ill fitting clothes that the artist would often depict during this time and appear to be moving forward, almost lurching off the paper into our space. Whilst appearing to be contained within an arch, there is no further hint of a specific location thus creating a sense of mystery which has been alluded to by Michael Howard.

'Here, as in a number of small-group and single-figure works, his people are individualised in a way that his earlier inhabitants of the urban scene were not. Unlike his industrial figures, they are not set in a specifically urban framework; the world they inhabit is nebulous, uncertain and empty, as mysterious and ambiguous as they are themselves' (Michael Howard, Lowry, A Visionary Artist, Lowry Press, Salford Quays, 2000, p.195).