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Head of a Man with Red Eyes (1938)
O I L

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SIZED: 20 X 17 (APPROX.)
DATE: 1938
TYPE: OIL

©  ESTATE OF L.S. LOWRY

In all but title this can be seen as a self-portrait painted at a time when the artist was deeply perturbed by his mother's illness. She was to die only a year later in 1939

It was painted under great emotional stress and is plainly a cry of blind anguish: an image of isolation and suffering, profoundly and deeply introspective. The human soul momentarily suspended in the vacuum of absolute angst.

It also marks the precise point of Lowry's retreat from any personal involvement with other human beings. From this time onwards he would grow less interested in the individual personality of people, towards whom in his later work - the drawings especially - he would display a penetrating hostility.

This was also the year of the chance discovery by A. J. McNeil Reid who saw some of his paintings while visiting the framers, James Bourlet & Sons Ltd..

The following year saw his first one-man exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery. He exhibited there on some thirteen occasions. Dwellings, Ordsall Lane, Salford purchased by the Tate Gallery.

Source: L.S. Lowry RA, 1887-1976: [catalogue of an exhibition held at the Royal Academy], 4 September to 14 November [1976]

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