Lowry Prints

This print, limited to an edition of 100, was signed by Lowry on 12th January 1976, and depicts figures in Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester. All the characters in this setting were well known to him.

"The poor cripple was always around when I visited the gardens," said Lowry, "until the hard winter about 1968 then I never saw him again - I think the cold must have killed him off."

"You see that lady in the foreground, she was a University lecturer, who must have had a brainstorm, sometimes she would speak so beautifully and with such intelligence, the next moment she would blaspheme so vehemently everyone nearby would move off. She verbally attacked the man standing in the background so much, that he just had to walk away."

"Now that man in the middle distance used to walk his dog every day whatever the weather. I never went to the park when he wasn't there with his little Scottie dog. The child standing by the cripple was so often alone - poor little thing - always smiling yet his mother nowhere to be seen."

"This painting," said Lowry, "took me two years, I just couldn't get it right. The colour of the canvas reminded me of a schoolboy's dirty face, so I put it in the sink and scrubbed it hard! Afterwards it seemed fine. Anyway, I was satisfied with it. I really think this is the best painting I ever did of a cripple."