Alan Lowndes
Alan Lowndes was born in 1921 in
Neaton Norris, a suburb of Stockport. He left school at 14, apprenticed to a
decorator. After active service in the Second World War, Lowndes attended
evening classes, studying art at Stockport College, committing to a full time
course in the late 1940s, but was largely self-taught.
He began to achieve success in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the period when northern writers such as Stan Barstow, John Braine and Alan Sillitoe were also coming to the fore. He had one man exhibitions in Manchester, London and New York and is represented in many public collections. Like Lowry, Lowndes was a painter of the working classes, represented by the same dealer. They had similarly simplistic styles of painting and like Lowry, Lowndes’s work presents a nostalgic vision of life in the urban north. Many of Lowndes’s contemporaries did not appreciate his art. His father famously offered to pay his bus fare to the wealthy Alderley Edge in order that he might paint the scenic spot referred to as Artists’ Lane rather than ordinary people going about their everyday lives. Willis Hall wrote: ‘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’. Although often compared to L. S. Lowry, he is considered by Terry Frost to be a greater painter.
From the early 1950s Lowndes began to work in St Ives, Cornwall, settling in the area for just over a decade. He became a close friend of many of the St. Ives School artists. In 1964 the Lowndes family moved from St Ives to the small village of Halestown after he had enjoyed successful exhibitions. He later settled in Dursley, Gloucestershire, but periodically returned to Stockport to work.
Alan Lowndes died in Gloucestershire in 1978. He is today regarded as one of the most important of the painters within the twentieth century Northern School. Lowndes has a wide body of collectors and his paintings are now much sought after.
He began to achieve success in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the period when northern writers such as Stan Barstow, John Braine and Alan Sillitoe were also coming to the fore. He had one man exhibitions in Manchester, London and New York and is represented in many public collections. Like Lowry, Lowndes was a painter of the working classes, represented by the same dealer. They had similarly simplistic styles of painting and like Lowry, Lowndes’s work presents a nostalgic vision of life in the urban north. Many of Lowndes’s contemporaries did not appreciate his art. His father famously offered to pay his bus fare to the wealthy Alderley Edge in order that he might paint the scenic spot referred to as Artists’ Lane rather than ordinary people going about their everyday lives. Willis Hall wrote: ‘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’. Although often compared to L. S. Lowry, he is considered by Terry Frost to be a greater painter.
From the early 1950s Lowndes began to work in St Ives, Cornwall, settling in the area for just over a decade. He became a close friend of many of the St. Ives School artists. In 1964 the Lowndes family moved from St Ives to the small village of Halestown after he had enjoyed successful exhibitions. He later settled in Dursley, Gloucestershire, but periodically returned to Stockport to work.
Alan Lowndes died in Gloucestershire in 1978. He is today regarded as one of the most important of the painters within the twentieth century Northern School. Lowndes has a wide body of collectors and his paintings are now much sought after.