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College is selling art for art’s sake

Emilene White
22/ 3/2006

A LOWRY painting bought for just a few shillings could net a school hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The parent teachers' association at Glossopdale Community College - then Glossop Grammar School - commissioned Mill Scene in 1959 for just 17s and 6d.

In June it will go under the hammer at Christie's Auction House in London. The auctioneers estimate it will sell for around £150,000 and potentially much more - in November another Lowry painting, A Footbridge, went for £422,400.

Named as his favourite Lowry by comedian Harry Hill, it is a typical industrial scene with a factory belching black smoke the backdrop to hunched stick figures scurrying across the street.

It hung only briefly in the school's foyer, where a copy took its place and hangs now.

The original was given on loan to Salford Art Gallery and then to The Lowry Centre in Salford where it is currently part of their exhibition, The Art of White.

Fittingly, cash from the auction on 9 June will pay for a new arts centre at the college, which was granted specialist arts college status last year.

Director of arts Chris O'Hara said: "Some people have suggested that it's like selling the family silver, but the PTA have stipulated that money from the sale goes towards the art development.

"It'll give us a 360-seater auditorium, as well as a foyer, an art exhibition space and a cafe.

"We felt that this was a really good time to sell the painting and it's an appropriate use of the money."

Head of galleries at The Lowry Centre, Lindsay Brooks, said: "We're very grateful to Glossopdale PTA for the loan of the Mill Scene to us.

"We've been able to show the painting in several exhibitions and it's currently taking pride of place in our exhibition, The Art of White, as a wonderful example of Lowry's use of white paint.

"We wish Glossopdale PTA every success with its sale."

Laurence Stephen Lowry lived in Mottram at The Elms on Stalybridge Road from 1948 up until his death in 1976.