“The North Sea”, an important seascape by Laurence Stephen Lowry, is to be sold in Tennants Auctioneers’ Modern & Contemporary Art Sale on 15th October with an estimate of £400,000-600,000 (plus buyer’s premium).
L. S. Lowry was fascinated by the sea. At once both beautiful and dangerously powerful, it was a constant source of inspiration to the solitary artist. Indeed, in later life he said ‘I’ve always been fond of the sea. How wonderful it is, yet also how terrible. I often think… what if it suddenly changed its mind and didn’t turn the tide – and came straight on? If it didn’t stop and came on and on and on and on… That would be the end of it all.’
Lowry painted the sea throughout his life; however, the majority of his seascapes depict the North West coast, the resorts of Lytham and Rhyl where he had spent many a holiday with his somewhat overbearing mother. In these he painted seafronts bustling with holiday makers and boats scudding across sunlit seas. However, from the early 1940s he began to paint pure seascapes, with nothing but sea and sky. These rare, seemingly simple yet highly sophisticated works are far removed from the bustling industrial streets scenes for which he is better known.
“The North Sea”, painted in 1966, is one of the finest examples of his rare large-scale seascapes. After the death of his mother in 1939 and he was free to choose his own holiday destinations, Lowry frequently stayed for long periods of time at the Seaburn Hotel in Sunderland, which he became deeply attached to and where the staff took great care of him. Here he always stayed in the same room, which looked straight out at the empty expanse of the North Sea, the water and sky melding at the horizon.
“The North Sea” encapsulates Lowry’s extraordinary skill in manipulating his distinctive five-colour palette to create a painting that at first glance appears monochrome, but on closer inspection demonstrates a deft use of colour. Whilst predominantly using his beloved flake white, Lowry has modulated it with ivory black and hints of yellow ochre, Prussian blue, and vermillion. Lowry worked up his paintings over many months, gradually adding layer upon layer to create a texture and tone of great complexity and depth that draws the viewer in.
It is often suggested that we should see these seascapes purely as images of loneliness, and indeed in the 1940s Lowry once stated that ‘I started to paint the sea, nothing but the sea. But a sea with no shore and nobody sailing on it…. Look at my seascapes, they don’t really exist you know, they’re just an expression of my own loneliness’.
However, these works are as enigmatic and multifaceted as the artist himself. Rather than loneliness perhaps they represent a place of quiet solitude and peace, away from the clamour and industry of Salford, or a place of pure nature, composed only of elements upon which the hand of man has had no visible effect. Whatever his intentions, Lowry has created a remarkable work of art that captures the mysterious allure the sea has long exerted on mankind.
Laurence Stephen Lowry RBA, RA (1887-1976)
"The North Sea“
Signed and dated 1966, inscribed, signed, and dated 1965/6 verso on the canvas overlap, oil on canvas, 55.8cm by 86.36cm
Provenance: With Lefevre Gallery London, stock no. X8461
Property of a Lady, North West England
Exhibited: London, Lefevre Gallery, "Paintings by L.S. Lowry RA," 11th May - 3rd June 1967, Catalogue No.2 (Not illustrated)
For a related preparatory pencil study (1965) see Sotheby's London, June 10, 2015, lot 144, Modern and Post War British Art (£47,500)
A highly comparable oil painting to the present work was sold Christie’s, Modern British & Irish Art Evening Sale, London, March 22, 2022, Lot 7
Estimate: £400,000-600,000 plus buyer’s premium & ARR
MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART SALE
15th October 2022
Private viewing of the painting can be arranged. Contact francesca.young@tennants-ltd.co.uk or 01969 623780 to make an appointment.
