Alan Lowndes (1921-1978)

ALAN LOWNDES

CRANE KALMAN GALLERY LTD 178 Brompton Road, London SW3 1HQ Tel: +44 (0)20 7584 7566 / +44 (0)20 7225 1931 www.cranekalman.com / info@cranekalman.com

Alan Lowndes, St. Ives, 1964

ALAN LOWNDES (1921-1978)

A Centenary Exhibition 18th NOVEMBER 2021 – 31st JANUARY 2022

CRANE KALMAN GALLERY LTD 178 Brompton Road, London SW3 1HQ Tel: +44 (0)20 7584 7566 / +44 (0)20 7225 1931 www.cranekalman.com / info@cranekalman.com

A VIEW FROM THE VIADUCT by Keith Waterhouse (1929-2009) (Extracts from the Crane Kalman Gallery ‘Alan Lowndes’ exhibition catalogue of 1972)

Practically the only post-Victorian buildings you will see in a picture by Alan Lowndes are those monstrous cooling-towers that nowadays throw their shadows across acres of rubble and waste ground, like exhibits left over from Stockport or Halifax World’s Fair. It does not need a very shrewd observer to place his work: clearly it belongs somewhere between Arkwright’s spinning jenny and the Clean Air Act. The tag ‘nostalgic’ has been hung around Lowndes’ neck as often as that other one that says ‘L.S.Lowry’.

Where other artists have developed or at least moved on to California, Lowndes – apart from a few Cornish seascapes – has remained faithful to the northern industrial scene. Selftaught, the son of a railwayman, and with the requisite quota of labouring jobs behind him, he was a natural candidate for that so-called ‘northern school’ of novelists, dramatists, poets, actors and painters which came to prominence in the middle nineteen fifties. The school, if it existed, has long since dispersed, but its last pupil remains behind, painting pawn shops and games of dominoes. Is it nostalgia, arrogance or stubbornness? What is he up to?

There can be no arguing that Alan Lowndes’ paintings contains an affection for the past. Where are the organ grinders and the gas lamps now? Hasn’t THE ICE CREAM MAN given way to Mr Softee and the Tonibell chimes? Will THE ROSE FETE still be there when the terrace behind it has been pulled down, and all those parents and children are dispersed to housing estates, and the band is forbidden to practice because of the council regulations governing ball games, pets, cycling on public footpaths and the playing of musical instruments? Those sturdy brick walls the colour

of pickled red cabbage, where Lowndes’ urchins chalk up their goalposts and wickets, must all come tumbling down. Stockport Viaduct itself, unless it has become an ancient monument, will no doubt make way for a spaghetti junction in time. Only the cooling towers will remain.

Nostalgia?

If it is nostalgic to celebrate a time when people in a certain wage-group possessed and were allowed to possess their own sense of order, expressed and were allowed to express their own individuality, formulated and were allowed to formulate the rules of their own society - then yes, the charge sticks. The first thing you notice about a Lowndes painting is how absolutely at home in their surroundings are his characters. Everything belongs. Everyone is at home. The places are at home with the people and the people with the places. And this has led to another epithet – ‘sentimental’. There are those who have never entered a slum in their lives, let alone lived in one who are critical of this remembrance of things past.

But even passionate devotees of Lowndes’ work can be careless in the words they throw about. ‘Naive’, ‘Innocent’, ‘Child-like’ and so on. Naive it may be in its execution although I have often thought, putting one picture against another, that the artist is as naive as he wanted to be - but there is nothing innocent or child-like about Alan Lowndes’ observation. He has a most experienced eye.

Look at STOCKPORT MARKET, an earlier painting.

It is quite wistful in its evocation of some busy Italian piazza:Venice, perhaps. Alan Lowndes – who should be handed Stockport Viaduct to do as he pleases with, as Titian was given the ceiling of the Doge’s Palace – has seen

lavatories, old-fashioned front parlours or dole queues.

One Lowndes interior at least – THE BETTING SHOP (1964) could belong to any housing estate of the ‘seventies in Hackney or Islington. But there is a perverse – stubborn? arrogant? nostalgic? quality about it. It belongs, legally and sociologically, in the past. No enlightened mum would be so silly as to bring a young child into such a den of iniquity. Those two men are clearly frittering away good money that should be spent on television rentals and in the supermarkets. Reprehensible, every detail. But Lowndes cuts through all the twaddle. He offers us a picture of the family of man. Unity. These people all belong together.

Their world of the back streets and cooling towers has shrunk to this small space.

Stockport Market, 1949 (detail)

the improbable resemblance. He has noticed, unlike the architects, how the vitality and the zest of any workingclass community are yoked to the richness of its bricks and mortar.

What Lowndes is giving us in his unerring juxtaposition of corner shops, chimneys, houses, lamps, fences, walls, factories, alleys, and railway signals on the horizon, is more than an instinctive sense of composition. He has found out how a community works.

This has nothing to do, getting back to those charges of nostalgia and sentimentality, with any regard for outside

My friend Willis Hall wrote ten years ago that ‘Lowndes’ figures are those of a people struggling to get out of their environment.’ It might have seemed so then; it doesn’t seem so now, when that world has changed, but not the artist who is describing it. Lowndes, artistically at least, has become more of a sociologist than a socialist. He describes, vividly and with great insight; he observes the change, somewhat passively; but he does not prescribe the cure.

Those who are sociologists in print rather than in paint have recently begun to realise that there is a workingclass culture in its own right; that displacement of persons need not necessarily mean the displacement of personality.

Lowndes, instinctively or otherwise, has known this from the very beginning, which is why he has not moved. When he finds a housing development worth painting, it will be a sign that the new Jerusalem is being built at last.

Sylvan Grove, 1948 Oil on canvas 20.5 x 30 ins. / 52 x 76.2 cms.

The Key Cutter, 1949

Let Go You Bully, 1949

Oil on board 16.5 x 12.75 ins. / 42 x 32.5 cms.

Oil on board 12 x 15 ins. / 30 x 38 cms.

Portrait of Andras Kalman, 1950 Oil on board 30 x 22 ins. / 76 x 56 cm

The Crane Gallery, 1952 Oil on canvas 16 x 20 ins. / 41 x 51 cms.

The Egerton, 1952 Oil on canvas 10 x 12 ins. / 25.5 x 30.5 cms.

View from the Artist’s Window, 1952 Gouache on paper 19.5 x 23.25 ins. / 49.5 x 59 cms.

The Lavatory, 1953 Oil on board 24.75 x 20 ins. / 63 x 51 cms.

Nude, 1953 Oil on board 18.25 x 10.5 ins. / 46.5 x 27 cms.

Great Egerton Street, 1953 Oil on canvas 22 x 29 ins. / 56 x 74 cms.

Coffee Bar with Jukebox, 1953 Gouache on board 17.25 x 23.5 inches / 44 x 60 cms.

Apsley Street, Stockport, 1954 Oil on board 21.25 x 25.5 ins. / 54 x 65 cms.

Church, c. 1955 Oil on board 12.5 x 20 ins. / 31 x 51 cms.

The Harbour, St. Ives, 1956 Oil on board 28 x 36 ins. / 71 x 91.5 cms.

Self Portrait, 1958 Oil on board 30 x 19.75 ins. / 76 x 50 cms.

French Crabber, 1962 Oil on board 20 x 24 ins. / 51 x 61 cms.

Love Near the Tripe Works, 1963 Oil on board 30 x 24 ins. / 76 x 61 cms.

The Betting Shop, 1964 Oil on board 20 x 27 ins. / 51 x 69 cms.

Man’s Head Rock, Cornwall, 1965 Oil on board 28 x 36 ins. / 71 x 91.5 cms.

The Jackpot, 1967 Oil on board 24 x 20 ins. / 61 x 51 cms.

The Snack Wagon, 1968

Paradosa, Italy, 1970

Oil on board 16 x 20 ins. / 41 x 51 cms.

Oil on board 48 x 35.5 ins. / 122 x 90 cms.

Darts Practice, 1971 Oil on board 22 x 18 ins. / 56 x 46 cms.

Stuart Street,Tiger Bay, Cardiff, 1973 Oil on canvas 30 x 20 ins. / 76 x 51 cms.

Louisa Street, 1973 Oil on board 28 x 36 ins. / 71 x 91.5 cms.

Old Gloucester Barge, 1978 Oil on board 21.75 x 19.75 ins. / 55 x 50 cms.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES:

EXHIBITION LIST:

1921:

Born Stockport, Cheshire, fifth child of a railway clerk.

One-man Exhibitions

1935:

Left school and became apprenticed to a decorator.

1950

Crane Gallery, Manchester

1951

Served with the British Forces in the Middle East, Italy and Austria.

The Stockport Arms, 25 St.Petersgate, Stockport, March

1952

Active service and working in the map-making unit.

Crane Gallery Manchester, ‘Alan Lowndes, Thirty Six Paintings’, March

1953

County Hotel, Stockport

1939-45:

1949:

Found studio in Churchgate, overlooking Stockport market.

1955

Crane Gallery, Manchester, February

1956

Prospect Gallery, London

1950:

Worked for Julian Frank, a German textile designer whilst taking night classes for life drawing at Stockport Art School

1956

Crane Gallery Manchester, ‘Paintings by Alan Lowndes’, Feb. 14 – Mar. 9

1956

Crane Gallery, 13 Duke Street, St. James, London, ‘Paintings 1949 to 1956’

1957

Crane Kalman Gallery, London, 178 Brompton Road, London SW3, ‘Alan Lowndes of Stockport’, Oct. 17 – Nov. 2

1961

Crane Kalman Gallery, London, ‘Alan Lowndes’, Dec. 14, 1961 – Jan. 13, 1962

1962

Crane Kalman Gallery, London

1964

Osborne Gallery, New York, ‘Alan Lowndes’, April 14 – May 3

1965

Crane Kalman Gallery, London, ‘Alan Lowndes’, Dec. 10, 1965 – Jan 16, 1966

1966

Crane Kalman Gallery, 35 South King Street, Manchester, ‘Alan Lowndes of Stockport’, June 8 – June 25

1967

Magdalene Street Gallery, Cambridge

1968

Crane Kalman Gallery, London, ‘Alan Lowndes’, April 25 – May 18

1968

Neptune Theatre, Liverpool, September

1968

Curlew Gallery, Lord Street, Southport, Dec. 7, 1968 – Jan. 11, 1969

1972

Crane Kalman Gallery, London, ‘Recent Paintings by Alan Lowndes’, April 20 – May 20

1950-1951: First exhibition at the Crane Gallery, Manchester. Gained strong reputation amongst Northern ‘artistic community’ – especially the playwrights and actors of his generation: Michael Parkinson, Willis Hall, Keith Waterhouse, Richard Attenborough, Albert Finney, Charles Laughton – all early patrons.

1952-58:

Frequent visits to St. Ives – became well acquainted with artistic community.

1959:

Married Valerie, moved to St. Ives. Portrayed local seafolk and seascapes.

1960-1970: Visited Stockport at least once a year.Valerie had three children.

1970-78:

Through ill-health moved to Dursley, Gloucestershire where he died of liver failure.

1972

Stockport Art Gallery, Greek Street, Stockport, ‘Retrospective Exhibition’, Sept. 23 – Oct. 14

1994

Emscote Lawn, Warwick, ‘Alan Lowndes’, September

1972

Rutland Gallery, 29 Bruton Street, London, Nov. 28 – Dec. 30

1995

1973

Turnpike Gallery, Leigh, Lancashire, ‘Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings 1948 – 72’, Jan. 9 – Jan. 27

Crane Kalman Gallery, ‘Alan Lowndes (1921 – 1978), Retrospective Exhibition’, Oct. 24 – Dec. 2

2010

Stockport Museum and Art Gallery, Retrospective Exhibition and Book launch of ‘Alan Lowndes’ by Jonathan Riley, Friday February 19th; Exhibition: Saturday, February 20 – Monday, May 31 Crane Kalman Gallery, ‘Alan Lowndes – A Retrospective Exhibition’, June 22 – July 31

1976

Crane Kalman Gallery, London, ‘Alan Lowndes, a Selection of Paintings’, Feb. 24 – Mar. 20

1977

Annexe Gallery, 45 Wimbledon High Street, London, ‘Alan Lowndes – A Selection of Paintings’, April 30 – May 28, 1977

2010

1977

Arts Centre, Bristol, ‘Paintings of Alan Lowndes’, September

Mixed Exhibitions

1978

Crane Kalman Gallery, London. ‘Alan Lowndes: a selection of Paintings’, Feb. 7 – Mar. 4

1950

Crane Gallery, Manchester, ‘Craxton, Freud, Milner, Gilbert and Lowndes’, April

1979

Singer Museum, Laren Holland

1950

1979

Stockport Art Gallery, ‘Alan Lowndes’, June 9 – July 7

Crane Gallery, Manchester, ‘Two Young Painters, Alan Lowndes and Richard Bridge’, September

1955

Lancashire Society of Artists

1959

Crane Kalman Gallery, ‘Humour in Art’

1959

Walker Art Gallery Liverpool, ‘John Moores Exhibition’

1979

Penwith Galleries, ‘Alan Lowndes 1948 – 1978, Aug. 18 – Sept. 6

1979

Atkinson Gallery, Southport. Dec. 1 – Dec. 22

1980

Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, Sept.

2 – 20

1960?

1980

Singer Museum, Oude Drift 1, Laren, Netherlands, ‘Alan Lowndes 1921 – 1978’, Dec. 13, 1980 – Jan. 18, 1981

(The date is not known) Sail Loft Gallery, St. Ives, ‘Lowndes, Le Grice and Bill Featherstone’, July 9 – Aug. 4

1959

Crane Kalman Gallery, London, ‘The Innocent Eye’ Dec. 11, 1959 – Jan. 16, 1960

1984

Crane Kalman Gallery, London, ‘Alan Lowndes – Retrospective’, May 9 – June 23

1960

1991

Crane Kalman Gallery, London, ‘Alan Lowndes – A Selection of Thirty Paintings’, March 12 – April 13

Arts Council Tour, ‘Northern Artists – Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Bolton, Bradford, Carlisle’, July – December

1960

Crane Kalman Gallery, London, ‘Mood of the North’, Nov. 9 – Dec. 3

1993

The Gallery, Manchester’s Art House

1961

1994

Sims Gallery, 22 Fore Street, St. Ives, ‘Alan Lowndes’, Jan. 29 – Feb. 12

Bradford City Art Gallery, ‘Spring Exhibition’, March 29 – May 28

1962

Kuntsverein, Hanover, Malerei der Gegenwart aus Sudwestengland

1962

Crane Kalman Gallery, ‘Painted in England, Four Uniquely English Artists’; Sept. 20 – Oct. 20

1979

Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport, ‘Town and Country: and Exhibition of Works by Alan Lowndes and Mary Newcomb’, Dec. 1 – 22

1963

Sail Loft Gallery, St. Ives, Summer

1963

Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, ‘John Moores Exhibition’, Nov. 1963 – Jan. 1964

1983

Crane Kalman Gallery, ‘The Englishness of English Painting’, Dec. 4, 1963 – Jan. 15, 1964

Christopher Hull Gallery: ‘Barrington Moore Tabb: with small exhibition of works by Alan Lowndes, 1923 – 1979’, July 6 – Aug. 6

1963

1983

Andrew Dickinson White Museum, Cornell University, New York, ‘The Englishness of English Painting’, 1963 – 1964

Arts Council, ‘Landscape in Britain 1850 – 1950’

1963

Hayward Gallery February 10th – April 17th

Bristol April 30th – June 4th

1965

Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, ‘Artists In Cornwall’, 1965

Stoke on Trent June 11th – July 16th

Sheffield July 23rd – August 28th

1965

Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, ‘Industry and the Artist’, Feb. 28 – March 28

1985

Crane Kalman Gallery, ‘Five very English Artists’, May 15 – June 15

1965

Crane Kalman Gallery, ‘4 Literary Painters’, March 18 – April 15

1985

1965

Atkinson Gallery, Southport, Mixed Exhibition, May 29 – Aug, 29

1967

Crane Kalman Gallery, ‘Modern British Painting’

1968

The Arts Council, ‘Painting 1964 to 1967’

City Museum and Art Gallery Worcester, ‘Cornish & Contemporary: a selection by Peter Davies of recent paintings and sculpture in Cornwall: Robert Adams, Noel Betowski, Mary Fedden, John Gibbons, David Haughton, Alan Lowndes, Alastair Michie, Charlotte Moore, Tony O’Malley, Bryan Wynter’, Nov. 9 – Dec. 7

1968

Crane Kalman Gallery, ‘Modern British Painting’

1986

Stoke-on-Trent City Art Gallery, ‘The Flower Show’, July 26 – Sept. 7

1969

Oestende Museum, Ostend – date not known, possibly 1969

1989

Pelter Sands Gallery, Bristol, ‘A Northern School’ – November

1970

Crane Kalman Gallery, ‘Modern British Painting’, Dec. 1, 1970 – Jan. 16, 1971

2001

Crane Kalman Gallery – Painted in England, Four Uniquely English Artists

1976

New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham, First Exhibition: ‘Sheila Fell, Alan Lowndes, L.S. Lowry and a group of Northern Primitive Painters, also sculpture by Ben Franklin’, April 6 – 29.

2001

Crane Kalman Gallery – British, European and American Art

2002

Crane Kalman Gallery – British and American Art

(Lowndes has been included in mixed exhibitions every year after 2002 at the Crane Kalman Gallery)

1979

Crane Kalman Gallery, ‘L.S. Lowry 1887 – 1976 and Alan Lowndes 1921 – 1978 – A Comparison’, March 15 – April 4

Mixed Exhibitions cont.

Works held by the Tate Gallery

2002

Dartsman and Organ Grinder 1972 Lithograph on paper, image: 505 x 657 mm Presented by Curwen Studio through the Institute of Contemporary Prints 1975 The work exists in an Edition of 100 + 10 Artist’s Proofs and it was published by Crane Kalman Gallery.

John Martin, London: ‘Twentieth Century Painting & Sculpture: L.S. Lowry, Henry Moore, Laura Knight, Alberto Morrocoo, Beatrice How, Sheila Fell, Alan Lowndes, John Piper, Mary Fedden, Josef Herman,Vincent Bennett, John Bratby, Elisabeth Frink, Jack Knox, Anthony Eyton, Derek Hill, Gwen John, William Crosbie’, April 6 – 29.

2008/2009/2010 ‘Unpopular Culture’: Grayson Perry selects from the Arts Council Collection May 10 – July 6, 2008 De la Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea

July 19 – September 14, 2008 Harris Museum, Preston September 27 – November 8, 2008 Royal Museum and Art Gallery, Canterbury November 29, 2008 – January 4, 2009 DLI Museum and Durham Art Gallery, Durham January 16 – March 15, 2009 Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton March 21 – May 10, 2009 Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth May 16 – July 5, 2009 Scarborough Art Gallery, Scarborough July 18 – October 25, 2009 Longside Gallery, Wakefield November 7, 2009 – January 3, 2010 Victoria Art Gallery, Bath

The Doss House 1975 Lithograph on paper; image: 511 x 410 mm Presented by Curwen Studio through the Institute of Contemporary Prints 1975 The artist has also confirmed this information plus the fact that the work exists in an Edition of 100 + 7 Artist’s Proofs. It was published by Pallas Gallery.

The Pawnbroker 1975 Lithograph on paper, image 495 x 413 mm Presented by Curwen Studio through the Institute of Contemporary Prints 1975 The artist has also confirmed this information plus the fact that the work exists in an Edition of 100 + 10 Artist’s Proofs. It was published by Pallas Gallery.

Stockport Viaduct 1973 Lithograph on paper, image: 410 x 502 Presented by Curwen Studio

Front Cover:

Self Portrait, 1958

Alan Lowndes, St. Ives, 1964

ALAN LOWNDES

CRANE KALMAN GALLERY LTD 178 Brompton Road, London SW3 1HQ Tel: +44 (0)20 7584 7566 / +44 (0)20 7225 1931 www.cranekalman.com / info@cranekalman.com