Important L.S. Lowry Auction

Among the highlights of Christie's British Art series in November is an important private collection of works by L.S. Lowry that unveils previously unknown details about the evolution of the artist, his working methods and his close personal friendships. The Ives Collection of Works by L.S. Lowry comprises seventeen works by the artist and includes oil paintings and drawings. The collection will be sold in Christie's sale of 20th Century British Art on 24 November 2000.

"The Ives Collection is among the most important private collection of works by L.S. Lowry ever to seen at auction. The broad range of subject-matter included in the collection, from portraits to landscapes, and the personal recollections of every acquisition give a superb overview of this much-loved artist," said Rachel Hidderley, Head of Christie's 20th Century British art sales.

Lawrence Ives, a respected child psychologist, was one of L.S. Lowry's closest friends and the majority of the collection was acquired directly from the artist after an initial meeting in October 1959 when he bought his first picture, Group of People, 1959, oil on panel (estimate: £20,000-30,000). Since his early teens Ives, who is now in his eighties, had been a budding art collector and had actually bought a lithograph by Lowry for his parents in 1951. Although he was already familiar with the artist's work and style when he and his wife, Daphne, both post-graduate students in the field of child psychology, moved to Mottram-in-Longdendale in the summer of 1959, he was initially unaware that the artist lived at The Elms, just half a mile away.

A conversation with a neighbour in Mottram led to the Ives's first meeting with L.S. Lowry. Mr. Ives informed of a 'chap in the village who is a right take on …who does a bit of drawing and painting but they are not up to much. He passes under the name of Lowry' (It was explained that to be a 'take-on' you had to pretend to do something that you can't). That same evening, Daphne Ives went to meet the artist. Leaving their new house at 8.30 p.m., she did not return until after midnight, filled with enthusiasm and describing Lowry as an "incredible, fascinating and lovely man".

Lawrence Ives visited the following evening and a friendship began that lasted until the artist's death. Just before the end of the first meeting, Lowry announced that he wanted to give Ives a painting as a gift. "I told him I could not accept a gift," Mr. Ives remembers. The artist asked what the couple felt they could pay but at this time Mr. and Mrs. Ives had a total income of £500 a year from two post-graduate research scholarships held at Manchester University. The artist insisted they pay what they could, and so they settled on a price of £33, 6 shillings and the Ives collection was born.

In the years to come Ives and Lowry developed a deep bond, often talking well into the night in what they described as 'our kind of banter'. The friendship meant that Ives bought the majority of the works in the collection directly from the artist, with some paintings executed specifically by Lowry for the couple, including A Court, Manchester, 1964, oil on canvas (estimate: £60,000-100,000). The idea for the painting arose towards the end of 1963, when Lowry first suggested to the Ives' that he should paint a picture for them. "I suppose you want an industrial,' he had said. By then, however, Mr. and Mrs. Ives were qualified psychologists, working as lecturers and clinicians in child development, so they requested a painting showing the stages of childhood. In August 1964, on returning from a French camping holiday, the couple had barely been in their house for five minutes when the telephone rang. Mr. Ives recalls the abrupt message, "This is L.S. Lowry and I've got that picture for you." Lawrence Ives immediately went to the artist's house in the still fully loaded holiday car. On seeing A Court, Manchester, Ives challenged Lowry with an interpretation: "I think Lowry that the old man in the doorway represents you now, the watcher, and the boy staring out in the near foreground is you as a child alone. And there is the girl on the right with her back to us …' Lowry became excited. 'That's the one, Sir, that's the one … I had more trouble with her than anyone else in the picture … but can I take it next door and sign it? Does it past muster? Am I approved?'" The painting was of course 'approved' and entered the Ives Collection there and then.

A further highlight, Girl with red Scarf and black Trousers, oil on canvas, 1967 (estimate: £20,000-30,000), was titled by Lawrence Ives himself during a particularly lively discussion with the artist one November evening. Lowry had gone into his back room and come back with the painting saying: "I was thinking of you when I did this. One for your clinic! What do you think? Give me a title". Mr. Ives responded: "Well, it's a girl …" Lowry exploded: "A GIRL! It is a BOY but I won't fall out with you over a little matter like that. Well, what do I call it?" "She is wearing a red scarf and black trousers," suggested Lawrence Ives. "Wait that's it, let me get a pen", cried Lowry. The artist picked up a black felt tipped pen and prepared to write on the back of the canvas saying, "Now, Sir, what was that … Girl wearing (or with) a red scarf and black trousers. There it is on the back for all time but I still think it is a boy. But I'm grateful, very grateful indeed … Do you know Sir, I could have sat here for ten years, ten whole years, and never thought of that title. Do you eat a lot of fish?" The writing is still visible on the back of the painting today.

Mr. Ives never asked if he could buy a painting or drawing, always letting the idea come from the artist. They would meet every few months. Ives would arrive at 8.30 in the evening and stay until early the following day. Often a year or two would pass between the men without Lawrence Ives acquiring a work and then suddenly Lowry would produce a portfolio of work and tell him to look through it and have one. The choice of one of the drawings bought from Lowry for the collection, Head of a Young Man, 1950, pencil (estimate: £7,000-10,000), brought the two men closer together during the early stages of their friendship. The artist was particularly pleased when Ives chose this portrait rather than one of the more popular industrial scenes. Family Group, 1967, pencil (estimate: £10,000-15,000), shows friends and neighbours from Stalbridge Road, near where Lowry lived, and is another example acquired directly from one of the artist's portfolios.

One of the final drawings collected directly from the artist, View from the Window of The Royal Technical College, Salford, 1924, pencil (estimate: £12,000-18,000), was given as a present to Mr. and Mrs. Ives in October 1974. The work was discovered by Daphne Ives on a visit to Lowry earlier in the summer of 1974 when she had found Lowry, now an old man, hunting for a picture in his backroom. "As you went in, he used to paint to your right sitting in a Victorian armchair. To your left was a table stacked with paintings and drawings in folios. The room was, in Northern parlance, 'a tip'. Daphne helped him to shift some boards, dust-covered, and found this study between two of them as the bottom of the pile" recalls her husband. Her prize for finding the work among the disarray of the house was to keep the work.