Hulme Place, Salford

Lowry attended art school in Salford in a Victorian building overlooking Peel Park which borders the River Irwell. The city provided him with the elements which he found so fascinating: the river, the park, and the buildings close to them, the Georgian terraces and the churches. Empty of people, the present work features a lamppost, a prominent image often incorporated in the artist's compositions. Mervyn Levy comments, 'It can be seen, not only as an attractive and decorative object in its own right, adding strength and character to the pictures in which it appears, but also as an autobiographical note symbolising the loneliness and isolation of the artist as observer. An interpretation which accords well with his often repeated comments on the loneliness and frustration he frequently felt. "If I had not been lonely I should not have seen what I did!"'. (see M. Levy, L.S. Lowry R.A., Royal Academy exhibition catalogue, London, 1976, p. 60).