LS Lowry “Sailing Boats” painting location, Lytham, Lancashire

The painter LS Lowry used to love holidays in Lytham on the Lancashire coast. He was taken there as a boy and continued to go alone after his mum had died. When he was fifteen he did a pencil sketch measuring two and a half inches by four inches simply titled ‘Yachts’ (known to be one of his earliest sketches.) Aged 25 he painted “Sailing Boats”. I read he painted it (probably sketched it out) while staying one of the boarding houses on the front near the white windmill. Here I am at this location. Sorry the grass is a little parched; when I took these photos it hadn’t rained for weeks.

“Sailing Boats” was left to The Lowry Collection in the will of Geoffrey Shephard who died in 2016. He was the grandchild of Annie Hall Shephard who was a cousin of Lowry’s mum. Lowry gave the painting to Geoffrey’s parents as a wedding present on their marriage in 1920. It gained the approval of his mum Elizabeth who rarely said anything approving of her son’s paintings.

I had a stroll along the big houses on the front and looked across to the boats temporarily stuck until the tide came back. I looked up at the high windows and imagined him sat at one sketching the boats, not knowing what was ahead. The terrain looks like that in “Sailing Boats” but we’ll never know.

Lowry links…

His grave : http://johnhalley.uk/Grave%20-%20Lowry.htm

Family in Pendlebury : http://johnhalley.uk/BP%20-%20Pendlebury%20home.htm

Last home in Mottram : http://johnhalley.uk/BP%20-%20Lowry.htm