Reviews provided by Syndetics

Booklist Review

Lowry is Britain's Andrew Wyeth: an artist popularly adored but critically unnoticed, even disdained. He worked as a rent collector and clerk in a mill town near Manchester, painting in his spare time and without the least encouragement from his parents, with whom he lived until their deaths. At first glance, the industrial cityscapes crowded with bustling people for which he is best known and loved seem the work of a naive, self-taught artist, especially in their perspectival distortions and trademark ``matchstick'' figures. But these apparent primitivisms were the choices of a highly trained draftsman who in less public works was often more naturalistic. The well-written essays that accompany this complete catalog of Lowry's art in British public galleries consider the conundrums of his style as well as the extreme solitude of his life and the curious incapability of art critics to quite grasp the nature of his achievement. A very appealing monograph, essential to the library without others on this singular artist. The catalog proper is annotated, and a selected exhibition list, select bibliography, and index are appended. RO. 759.2 Lowry, L. S.-Exhibitions / English paintings-Lowry, L. S.-Catalogues [OCLC]