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Lot Essay
John Read's first short film on L.S. Lowry, A Painter at Home, was reviewed by The Times on 17 July 1957, 'Mr John Read, producer of a short film about Mr L.S. Lowry which was shown privately in London on Monday before being televised by the B.B.C. Television this evening, has made good use of the painter's readiness - in this his seventieth year - to cooperate.
Opportunities of seeing pictures by Mr Lowry are, after all, to be had fairly easily, and not only in his native county of Lancashire. But an opportunity of seeing him at work in his studio - yes, actually at work on one of those small dark-clothed figures without shadows - and of hearing him talk, talk about painting and only about painting: this is something only a few of us could have had if Mr Lowry had not been willing to put himself in the hands of Mr Read, of Mr Robin Still, who acted as cameraman, and of Mr Robert Reid, who spoke the commentary.
In fact, it is almost no commentary and all talk. Mr Lowry is the last man to try to explain why the painting of one square mile or so of houses - Oldham Road in Manchester - is the task that after half a century still satisfies him. The point is that it does. Changes that occur, for instance, in the style of people's clothes, he hardly notices. He asks only to go on painting what he sees in his 'mind's eye'. And the camera persuades us that we are in the room where this happens, with clocks ticking to the right and left of him, and with four drawings by Rossetti to attest the object of his first love'.
The Southport businessman, Monty Bloom, watched this film by chance, and it inspired him to seek out the artist and to become his greatest private patron. Monty Bloom owned hundreds of paintings by the artist, and the remaining works in The Bloom Collection were sold in these Rooms on 9 June 2000, lots 41-60.
Opportunities of seeing pictures by Mr Lowry are, after all, to be had fairly easily, and not only in his native county of Lancashire. But an opportunity of seeing him at work in his studio - yes, actually at work on one of those small dark-clothed figures without shadows - and of hearing him talk, talk about painting and only about painting: this is something only a few of us could have had if Mr Lowry had not been willing to put himself in the hands of Mr Read, of Mr Robin Still, who acted as cameraman, and of Mr Robert Reid, who spoke the commentary.
In fact, it is almost no commentary and all talk. Mr Lowry is the last man to try to explain why the painting of one square mile or so of houses - Oldham Road in Manchester - is the task that after half a century still satisfies him. The point is that it does. Changes that occur, for instance, in the style of people's clothes, he hardly notices. He asks only to go on painting what he sees in his 'mind's eye'. And the camera persuades us that we are in the room where this happens, with clocks ticking to the right and left of him, and with four drawings by Rossetti to attest the object of his first love'.
The Southport businessman, Monty Bloom, watched this film by chance, and it inspired him to seek out the artist and to become his greatest private patron. Monty Bloom owned hundreds of paintings by the artist, and the remaining works in The Bloom Collection were sold in these Rooms on 9 June 2000, lots 41-60.