Beach Scene

The present work is a joyful scene of post-war Britain, in which Lowry's figures are seen to be relaxed and carefree. Lowry was fascinated both by the sea and by our relationship with it, and in this painting he expresses the sense of freedom and pleasure that the sea and beach provided. Typically in his paintings of people by the sea, he places the viewer at a high perspective, looking down upon the scene.

Michael Howard comments on Lowry's beach scenes, 'the figures walk and occupy themselves as they would in any of his urban scenes. It is in these compositions that he comes closest to the crowded but immaculately considered canvases of Brueghel. Lowry's instinctive feel for the ebb and flow of people in the city is here translated to the beach, where the movement of the figures is counterpointed by that of the sea. His scenes celebrate the landscape of discreet holidaying, a world away from the noisy, vulgar realities of Blackpool Pleasure Beach, for example, and suggest the more tranquil, gentler resorts a few miles further south of that centre of robust liberality and licence. Despite Lowry's alleged liking for fairgrounds, markets and places of informal mass congregation, it is significant that these highly visible aspects of seaside resorts are transposed into scenes of ordered behaviour. His crowds are always ordered, never threatening; any display of the liberated, carnival aspect of urban living, whether within or without the city, that may be found elsewhere in his work ... He celebrates the restrained, puritanical pleasures of doing nothing, or the banal activities that mask the private pleasures of observation and contemplation' (see M. Howard, Lowry A Visionary Artist, Salford, 2000, p. 231).

Throughout his life, the sea always held a particular fascination for Lowry. In his youth, holidays were spent at Lytham St Anne's on the Fylde coast at Easter, and at Rhyl, North Wales, during the summer months. Later in his life, he enjoyed the coastlines near Sunderland and around the North East, and particularly at Berwick-upon-Tweed. It has been suggested that this work might be a view from Spittal Beach near Berwick, which was a favourite walking place for Lowry on his many visits to the town.

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