The Elite Fish and Chip Shop

Painted in 1949, The Elite Fish and Chip Shop is filled with the nuance and human detail so typical of L.S. Lowry’s street scenes, capturing a momentary snapshot of the ebb and flow of people as they traverse the urban landscape as the evening closes in. Lowry was fascinated by the daily activities, familiar routines and long standing rituals that dominated the lives of the working-class population of the North of England, often training his eye on the events and experiences that drew people together, from gathering to watch a football match, to the excitement of a day at the funfair or, as in the present work, the treat of supper from the local chip shop. People of all ages occupy the long queue that stretches down the pathway, their various poses imbuing the scene with an impression of the chill that fills the air, the noise and chatter as families catch up on the day’s events, and the palpable anticipation of reaching the counter to place their order. Along the street, other figures are seen striding to and from unknown destinations, driven past the orderly queue as they hurry on their way elsewhere.

The composition appears to be based on a drawing Lowry created in 1948 of a crowd waiting outside Cowles Fish and Chip Shop in the small Cumbrian village of Cleator Moor, where the artist’s close friend Reverend Geoffrey Bennett was living (Private Collection, on loan to The Lowry, sold in these Rooms, 24 May 2012, lot 228, £145,250, see note to lot 2). In The Elite Fish and Chip Shop, small adjustments to the positioning of the figures creates a more dynamic flow of individuals as they move through the composition, allowing the artist to create a series of little vignettes within the much larger scene, each of which convey an impression of the rich variety of activities and stories visible in these spaces. From the trio of figures who stand in the middle of the street, looking at the crowded queue – perhaps waiting for someone to emerge with their supper, or pausing before joining the end of the line, dismayed by the number of people who have made it there before them – to the bowler-hatted man striding down the centre of the road, newspaper clutched under his arm, little dog hurrying behind him, each figure carries suggestions of a narrative that exists beyond the boundaries of the canvas, and the moment the artist has captured. In a conversation with the critic Edwin Mullins, Lowry explained that this was one aspect of crowds which he found so appealing: ‘You see Sir [he called everyone Sir], people think crowds are all the same. But they’re not you know. Everyone’s different. Look! [He became very animated, pointing at people walking by]. That man’s got a twitch. He’s got a limp. He’s had too much beer. That woman, she’s angry with her child. Those two have had a row; you can see it from their faces… It’s wonderful, isn’t it? The battle of life, sir. That’s what it is. The battle of life’ (L. S. Lowry, quoted in T. G. Rosenthal,
L. S. Lowry: The Art and the Artist, London, 2010,p. 183).

For John Berger, the characters that populate Lowry’s canvases ‘know each other, recognise each other, exchange help and jokes – they are not, as is sometimes said, like lost souls in limbo; they are fellow-travellers through a life which is impervious to most of their choices.’ (J. Berger, ‘Lowry and the Industrial North,’ The New Society, 1966, reproduced in About Seeing, New York, 1980, pp. 90-91). This statement feels particularly true when viewing The Elite Fish and Chip Shop, as if the scene is a regular occurrence, the queue a place where neighbours bump into one another each week, nodding in greeting or exchanging the latest gossip. Balancing a sense of the universal with the specific, Lowry conjures an evocative image of life in the industrial towns of the North of England in the years following the end of the Second World War, rooting his compositions in the patterns and habits of its locals.

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