And he painted matchstalk men

Me n Col went to the Lowry exhibition at the Djanogoly Gallery today, which was incredibly interesting.
I'd never realised that most of his pieces were painted from memory, the sketches that he did in situ were real rough sketches - one was only a couple of inches big on the back of an envelope.  I'm still smiling about the fact that on one occasion he went with a fell painter to the Lake District where they stood in front of Skiddaw to paint, and at the end of the day, the fellow artist looked at his painting and was astounded to see that instead of capturing the beauty of Skiddaw he'd been creating a Salford scene - the kind of story which typifies Lowry's contrariness (sea scapes with only sea and sky, no beach or boats)  and sense of humour (men fighting outside a shop called  A.S. Windlers).
I'd also been under the mistaken impression that all of his matchstalk men were featureless "ants", but many are quite funny; drawn deliberately with buck teeth, or without chins or teeth, and many of the faces are captured again and again. 

The white backdrops that he often favoured were initially done in childish defiance to his teacher who critiqued his pictures as too dark (some of the churches are so dark it is difficult to see their features), and his reductionist and niave style is used to create dramatic red eyed subject matters.
That said, Col spent most of the visit critiquing the frames  .....
Definately worth a visit
Jackie