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Lot Essay
The subject matter of a local shop was a source of fascination for Lowry as he saw it as a place where people congregated not only to shop, but also to meet and chat. Lowry was fascinated by the people that he saw around him everyday, 'I look upon human beings as automatons: to see them eating, to see them running to catch a train, is funny beyond belief ... because they all think they can do what they want ... and they can't, you know. They are not free, No one is' (see J. Spalding, exhibition catalogue, Lowry, Middlesbrough, Cleveland Art Gallery, 1987, p. 48.)
In the present work, painted in 1949, some of the figures stride purposefully towards the large shop Neave and Lea, while one solitary figure seems more isolated, looking at a notice leaning against one of the pollarded trees on the left hand side of the composition. Lowry was fascinated by the psychology of crowds and how a person could be among many others and yet remain essentially alone. He commented to Mervyn Levy, 'All these people in my pictures, they are all alone, you know. They have got their private sorrows, their own absorptions. But they can't contact one another. We are all of us alone - cut off. All my people are lonely. Crowds are the most lonely thing of all. Everyone is a stranger to everyone else. You have only got to look at them to see that' (see M. Howard, Lowry: A Visionary Artist, Salford, 2000, p. 133).
In the present work, painted in 1949, some of the figures stride purposefully towards the large shop Neave and Lea, while one solitary figure seems more isolated, looking at a notice leaning against one of the pollarded trees on the left hand side of the composition. Lowry was fascinated by the psychology of crowds and how a person could be among many others and yet remain essentially alone. He commented to Mervyn Levy, 'All these people in my pictures, they are all alone, you know. They have got their private sorrows, their own absorptions. But they can't contact one another. We are all of us alone - cut off. All my people are lonely. Crowds are the most lonely thing of all. Everyone is a stranger to everyone else. You have only got to look at them to see that' (see M. Howard, Lowry: A Visionary Artist, Salford, 2000, p. 133).