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- Title
Masculinity and Isolation in the Self-Portraits of L.S. Lowry.
- Authors
Nixon, Ella
- Abstract
The 2013 Tate Britain exhibition Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life argued that L.S. Lowry (Laurence Stephen Lowry) was primarily "a painter of the industrial city and its working class". I nuance this social-realist narrative by analysing Lowry's self-portraits with regard to understandings of masculinity, in particular the "Manchester Man" ideal. This article argues that, through his self-portraits, Lowry negotiated the contradiction between his ambition to paint and the pressure to earn a wage as the household breadwinner. These conflicting identities--understood by Lowry especially through the writings of French philosopher François de La Rochefoucauld--had repercussions for his physical and mental health, as portrayed in his self-portraits of the 1930s and later metaphorical selfportraits. Overall, I argue that his paintings provide emotionally complex perspectives on his inner life and self-fashioning as an artist, in light of shifting expectations around masculinity, and his experience of isolation in twentieth-century Britain.
- Subjects
MASCULINITY; SELF-portraits; WORKING class; PAINTING exhibitions
- Publication
British Art Studies, 2023, Issue 25, p1
- ISSN
2058-5462
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.17658/issn.2058-5462/issue-25/enixon