A seascape by artist LS Lowry has been auctioned at Tennants Auctioneers in Leyburn, North Yorkshire for more than a million pounds. Although the artist was better known for depicting the north-west of England, The North Sea shows a view from Seaburn, near Sunderland. The work, which had been in private hands since a year after it was painted in 1966, sold for £1,070,381.
“Lowry was fascinated by the sea. At once both beautiful and dangerously powerful, it was a constant source of inspiration to the solitary artist and he painted it throughout his life; however, the majority of his seascapes depict the North West coast, the resorts of Lytham and Rhyl where he had spent many a holiday with his somewhat overbearing mother. In these he painted seafronts bustling with holiday makers and boats scudding across sunlit seas. However, from the early 1940s he began to paint pure seascapes, with nothing but sea and sky. These rare, seemingly simple yet highly sophisticated works are far removed from the bustling industrial streets scenes for which he is better known.“The North Sea”, painted in 1966, is one of the finest examples of his rare large-scale seascapes. After the death of his mother in 1939 and he was free to choose his own holiday destinations, Lowry frequently stayed for long periods of time at the Seaburn Hotel in Sunderland, which he became deeply attached to and where the staff took great care of him. Here he always stayed in the same room, which looked straight out at the empty expanse of the North Sea, the water and sky melding at the horizon.”
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