
Penny Day
Head of UK and Ireland
Sold for £37,500 inc. premium
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Provenance
Gifted by L.S. Lowry and Harold Riley to the family of the present owners
Thence by descent
Private Collection, U.K.
L.S. Lowry and Harold Riley first met in 1945 when the former presented Riley with an award for first prize at a Salford Grammar School art exhibition. They went on to be close friends and painting companions for thirty years. Together they worked on a project to record the local area and its people and the present work is a wonderful example of this collaboration.
Punch and Judy shows were very popular in Britain in the first half of the twentieth century and Lowry may well have seen his first whilst holidaying at the Lytham St Anne's seaside with his parents. Here, however, we are presented with a typically populated urban scene, much like the 1943 oil by Lowry of the same title in the Tate collection.