An iconic picture by Manchester artist LS Lowry has auctioned for £800,000. The painter sold Going To The Mill for £10 in 1926, and insisted on throwing in work so that the the buyer would get a fair deal.
Going To The Mill is very typical of Lowry’s trademark style. It shows crowds of his “matchstick” figures moving back and forth in front of a backdrop of industrial buildings.
A detail of the picture shows the caps, hats and clogs of typical Lowry figures. Image courtesy of Lyon & Turnbull.
Lowry, who was born in Stretford in Greater Manchester in 1887, painted the work in 1925.
It would be another 14 years before the painter, who largely funded and designed his own artistic education, would achieve a national profile as an artist.
Going To The Mill was sold in 1926 to Arthur Wallace, then literary editor of the Manchester Guardian (now the Guardian).
At the time, the £10 fee was substantial, worth more than £500 in today’s money, and Lowry apparently thought it was too much.
He wrote to Wallace and insisted he take another work, The Manufacturing Town, too.
Last week, Going To The Mill made £805,000 at auction in London.
Lowry’s Going To The Match from 1953. His works capture important social history like the birth of modern football in north-west England.
Simon Hucker, the modern and contemporary art specialist for auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull, told the BBC that at the time Wallace bought the painting Lowry was “a virtual unknown”.
“There are few artists who become a household name in Britain and Lowry definitely falls into this category,” he added.
A late-starter as a painter, Lowry produced a very large number of works.
He worked largely around the industrial towns of his native Manchester, but also painted on his travels, making well-known works in Glasgow and around Sunderland.
His works, many of which are in public collections (23 in the Tate), are extremely valuable as original works of art and huge sellers in reproduction.
Lowry at work in his studio. He enjoyed the attention that finally came his way as his work became famous in later life.
His most valuable works include A Cricket Match (1938) that sold for £1.2 million in 2019. Good Friday, Daisy Nook (1947) made £3.8 million in 2007.
Going to the Match, a 1953 version of a large number of similar football pictures is the most valuable, bringing in £7.8 million in 2022.
Lowry initially priced Going To The Mill at £30 but brought the price down to £10, throwing in the second painting when he did sell it. It has remained in the Wallace family since 1926 and was sold by them.
