New LS Lowry exhibition challenges perceptions of the artist as naive and uncultured

A forthcoming exhibition of 140 paintings by LS Lowry seeks to correct longstanding misconceptions about the artist’s education, sophistication, and range.

• The exhibition, titled LS Lowry: the Theatre of Life, opens on 24 October at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes.
• Co-curator Anthony Spira stated that Lowry was not self-taught, having spent many years at art college, and that he regularly attended opera, theatre, and cinema.
• The rarely seen 1932 painting A Football Match will be exhibited in public for the first time in nearly 85 years.
• Spira said that presenting only Lowry’s industrial scenes can lapse into a “negative caricature” of his work, noting his depictions of leisure and seaside life.