Two men talking

In the present work, Lowry has only included some basic background details, a bookshelf, a doorway and a desk, and therefore the viewer's attention is almost completely focused on the two men who are talking within this sparse interior. This work is an early example of a type of composition that Lowry would become increasingly interested in portraying, saying to Monty Bloom in a recorded conversation, 'Without knowing what it was, I had an instinctive feeling that the time had come to drop the industrials. Now I feel more strongly than ever that the figures just stand on their own two feet' (quoted in S. Rohde, L.S. Lowry: A Biography, Salford, 1999, p. 371).

The Conservative Minister and pioneer of 'Thatcherism', Sir Keith Joseph, Baron Joseph (1918-1994) married Hellen Louise Guggenheimer on 6 July 1951.