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