LS Lowry's Beach Scene, Lancashire sells at auction for £1.2m

A "charming" LS Lowry seascape has been sold at auction for £1.2m.

The 1947 oil on canvas Beach Scene, Lancashire, is thought to depict a scene from Lytham St Annes where Lowry holidayed as a child.

It was bought by Canadian press baron Lord Beaverbrook in 1955, who later gifted it to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery he funded.

Sotheby's auction house said the work showcases "Lowry's wide spectrum of artistic skill and technical talent".

Its catalogue said the painting was "full of all kinds of details of the various uses of the beach by different people, from the individual expressions on different character's faces, to dogs, to boats out on the sea, the atmosphere of the sky and the ebbing movement of the sea".

"The beach scenes also reveal Lowry's wide spectrum of artistic skill and technical talent, giving the opportunity for him to paint in a lighter colour palette with through the often sunnier climate of the beach as opposed to the city," it said.

"A particularly charming feature" was the two figures on the promenade "looking over and watching the bustling and dynamic beach scene unfold in front of them, the same way we are taking in the scene", Sotheby's added.

The artwork was among a series of modern art that went on sale earlier and sold for a hammer price of £950,000 with an additional buyer's premium of £245,500.

Lowry, who died in 1976, gained recognition for his depictions of working-class life in the industrial parts of northern England.

Last year Going To The Match, depicting a bustling throng of football fans gathered at the former home of Bolton Wanderers, sold at auction for a record-breaking £7.8m.

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