I visited Tate Britain yesterday for the last day of the Lowry exhibition and learned lots over and above all the matchstick men stuff. It was a special trip for me because Lowry brings back memories of my childhood - when I was a little lad, we had one of his prints hanging in the hallway along with Paul Klee's Sinbad the Sailor. (The Klee exhibition is on at Tate Modern so that's my next stop.)

All in all, it was an excellent exhibition with a very good and informative multimedia guide, presented by exhibition curators T.J. Clark and Anne Wagner. In fact I can imagine it might have been hard to follow without the guide. My biggest takeaways? The importance of powerful geometric forms to Lowry's work, his willingness to break the supposed rules of composition (one of my favourites is of this church) and the sense of hope that comes through the industrial smog, represented by the vibrant ochre that appears in so many of his pictures. Any disappointments? Sure, I'd loved to have seen more of his pictures without the matchstick people but, even so, it was an afternoon very well spent.  

Of course, no photos were permitted in the temporary exhibition areas so I made do with a bit of cheating - taking pictures of the mural on the staircase. Unfortunately I don't know the name of the artist so I can't give them credit - please do let me know if you know who it's by - and all I did was aim and fire the Olympus OM-D - yup, Oly's come out of hibernation for a while...

(Update: Just found out that the stair drawings were done by British artist David Tremlett. You can read about the project here and here.)