L.S. Lowry was born in Rusholme, Manchester in November 1887, the only child of R.S. and Elizabeth Lowry. At an early age he showed an inclination to become a painter and between 1905 and 1915 attended drawing and painting classes at the Municipal College of Art where he was tutored by Adolphe Valette. He moved with his parents to Pendlebury in Salford in 1909 where he lived for 40 years.Lowry attended Salford School of Art where he developed an interest in urban and industrial landscapes which were to figure prominently in his work and in 1919 exhibited at the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts and by the 1930s at the Royal Academy, London. R.S. Lowry was elected to the Royal Academy in 1962 and given the Freedom of the City of Salford in 1965. L.S. Lowry work presents a unique record of the culture and industrial landscape of the North of England with his marked characteristic figures. One gathers that they are not intended to represent real people met with in Manchester; one is looking at shadows of Lowry's lonely self. Not all his pictures are haunted in this way. There are cheerful crowds, women with prams and dogs at the seaside. Yet this strange presence is always discernible. In 1966 when he was 79, the Tate Gallery have Lowry a full retrospective exhibition and the price of his paintings steadily rose. His status was established with the sale of 'Going to the Match' for £1.9 million. A major collection of Lowry's work is held at the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays, Manchester.

.