Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A. (1887-1976)

The present owner's father wrote of this work 'Mr Lowry inspected ruins some weeks after the air raid in 1941 and completed the picture the following year. The street is behind the present Daily Express offices in Gt Ancoats Street, Manchester and near to Oldham Road, the scene of many of his well-known pictures from the period 1936-1951'.

Lowry's treatment of the effects of the war on the domestic front convey a very real sense of loss and desolation caused by the conflict. (For a fuller discussion see M. Howard, Lowry A Visionary Artist, London, Salford, 2000, p. 65).