Lowry (Salford)

The people of Manchester and Salford are very proud of their local artist L.S. Lowry. As a young child I visited several exhibitions showing his works and I remember him being on local TV often. Born in Manchester in 1887, he spent the rest of his life in nearby Salford, earning his living as a rent collector. As a painter he developed his own distinctive style by the 1920's. He concentrated on the life around him, his works depicting northern life in the industrial towns. He also painted some remote landscapes and seascapes as well as several portraits. L.S. Lowry died in 1976. In 1997 the lottery fund came up with money for the gallery and in ...

First impressions of the Lowry are, I'm afraid, not very good. It's not the building itself, which is a magnificent structure and truly a piece of inspired architecture, with sweeping lines of gun-metal grey. It is more to do with the building's immediate surroundings. The Lowry has been built in the redeveloped Quays area of Salford, and is approximately one and a half miles from Manchester city centre. Formerly a large dock works, the area laid derelict until redevelopment began in the late 1980's. Since then there has been a dramatic transformation, with new offices and upmarket flats being built, and the area has become prosperous once ...

I visited The Lowry in the first week after it was completed, last summer. We already knew from the news reports that it was a bit of a rush job, towards the end, and it definitely showed in those first few days. The interior décor left much to be desired - many a carpet edge needed tacking down, there were lots of places where it looked like they'd run out of paint... And on that Sunday when I visited the cafes simply weren't prepared for the huge numbers of visitors - no sandwiches, no ice creams? just Snickers bars if your were peckish. Not very good if you were planning to have a pre-concert bite to eat there! Anyway, all of that seems to have changed ...