Alan Lowndes is known mainly as painter in oils of the industrial north of England in a bright palette and with a distinct syle.
However, he later became a part of the St Ives group and was influenced by Ben Nicholson and most notably Sir Terry Frost RA.
Indeed, Frost was always of the opinion that Lowndes was a far better artist than lowry and went out of his way to say so.
He was born in Stockport, Cheshire, left school at 14 and became apprenticed to a decorator.
After several years in the army in World War II Lowndes studied painting in the evenings at Stockport College, he then started painting full-time in the late-1940′s.
He was taken up by The Crane Kalman Gallery in Manchester, where he had a number of one man shows, later showing at Crane Kalman, London. He also showed solo at the Osborn Gallery in New York, Curlew Gallery, Southport and had retrospectives at The Stockport Art Gallery and tour in 1972 and at Crane Kalman in 1995.
In recent years his reputation has soared culminating in a new retrospective in 2010 hosted by Stockport Art gallery and Crane Kalman, London and supported by a major book on his life and work by Jonathan Riley.
Picture courtesy Gateway Gallery, Macclesfield.