Alan Lowndes (1921-1978)

Lowndes was born in Stockport in 1921. He left school at 14 to be a decorator’s apprentice, before serving in the Second World War in South-West Asia and Italy. After the war, Lowndes began studying art at Stockport College in the evenings, but was mainly self-taught, and in the late 1940s he started painting full time. He went on to have one-man exhibitions in Manchester, London and New York, and after he died in 1978, a major retrospective of his work was held at Stockport Art Gallery in 2010.

Throughout his career, Lowndes was often compared to L. S. Lowry for the similarities their artwork shared in style and subject matter. Both worked to document the social life of the industrial North West and did so in a similarly stylised way. Lowndes, however, painted Stockport, while Lowry is more known for his depictions of Salford, and revisions of Lowndes’s status within Northern Art has led to his work being considered equally unique. Lowndes’ bright colour palette and urban themes are appealing features of his work at auction.