Mother and Child

The present work is unique in the artist's oeuvre. Here he depicts himself as a child seated on the knee of Ann, a composite figure painted from Lowry's imagination, who began to appear in paintings and drawings from 1956. In every other instance Ann appears alone, as does the artist in his many self-portraits, staring out at the viewer. Recognisable from her dark eyes, white face and ruby-red lips, Ann is a now understood to be a fantasy figure, a combination of the most important women in Lowry's life: variously his mother; his god-daughter, Ann Hilder; a childhood friend from holidays spent at Lytham St. Annes who had died in 1913; or, a fellow student from the Manchester Art College days to whom he was attracted. Like Rossetti's sumptuous portraits of Jane Morris, which Lowry collected and hung in his home, Ann is a symbol of a perfect dream woman, unsullied by reality.