LS Lowry painting that was bought for £10 could make a family millionaires

Daily Mail​

28-04-2025

An early painting by L.S Lowry which was bought in a 'two for one' deal for £10 is now tipped fetch a lucky family £1million.
The legendary English artist sold the 17ins by 21ins oil on panel work, entitled Going to the Mill, to journalist Arthur Wallace in 1926 for one third of the £30 listed price.
But a modest Lowry still felt he had charged the supportive literary editor too much so he gave him an extra painting, The Manufacturing Town, for free.
Going to the Mill (1925) is signed and dated by Lowry in the lower left hand corner.
It shows a mill and chimney behind a domed roof and a wall of windows, with scurrying 'matchstick' mill workers in the foreground.
The Manufacturing Town was sold by the Wallace family during Lowry's lifetime with his blessing to support a new generation of the family 'setting up'.
It is now in the collection of the Science Museum in London.
Now, after a century of ownership, the Wallace family are selling Going to the Mill via auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull with an estimate of £700,000 to £1million.
Once again, the proceeds of the sale is intended to support a new generation of the Wallace family.
Wallace, who was the literary editor at the Guardian (then the Manchester Guardian), had approached Lowry about buying Going to the Mill after it was displayed in Lewis's department store during the 1925 Manchester Civic Week.
At the time, Lowry was still a relatively unknown and underappreciated artist, a far cry from his stature today.
Lowry, who died in 1976 at the age of 88, became known for his classic depictions of working-class life, in particular the distinctive 'matchstick men' seen in the painting being sold, along with many others.
The Wallace family still have Lowry's letter of November 9, 1926, stating: 'Many thanks for your letter and cheque £10.
'I am very glad Mrs Wallace likes the picture Going to Work and take the liberty of asking you to please accept The Manufacturing Town as a souvenir of the Civic Week.
'I can assure you that it will always be with great pleasure that I shall think of that Saturday morning.'
The auctioneers said it is 'especially rare' to find a single owner Lowry painting on the market.
Simon Hucker, senior specialist in modern and contemporary art at Lyon & Turnbull, said: 'Civic Week was held by Manchester City Council ostensibly to celebrate the city's industrial success, but also with an ulterior motive to discourage the city's disgruntled workers from going on strike.
'It was the grim nature of workers' lives that interested Lowry but this also made it hard for him to find an audience for his work.
'The Manufacturing Town was sold by the Wallace family - with Lowry's blessing, as he understood that a new generation of the family needed help getting set up - and is now in the collection of the Science Museum in London.
'Going to the Mill was kept - recently being on long-term loan to Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, and only comes to market now as a further generation finds themselves in need of a leg up.
'This is a painting which shows us that Lowry is no naif painter of 'matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs', as the hit song by Brian and Michael in 1977 put it.
'It is the work of an artist of true dexterity who is making a deliberate formal choice, abstracting the figure, in order to express a concept, the sense of a life lived in even the smallest, most incidental figure.
'Going to the Mill is the epitome of a 1920s Lowry, when he truly becomes a unique voice.
'It is especially rare is for a painting such as this to have had only one owner.
'A work of similar size and date sold from HSBC's collection last year went for £1.2m.
'We are very proud to present this painting to the market for the first time since it was sold directly by Lowry.'
The sale takes place in the Mall Galleries, London, on Thursday, May 1.