Going to Work

File:1969 MATHER & PLATT (2388198855).jpg engineering works in Manchester is represented in Going to Work]]

File:British Trolleybuses - Manchester - geograph.org.uk - 3590417.jpg (or trolleybuses) are visible in the painting]]

Going to Work presents a grey, industrial scene of hundreds of factory workers walking towards the Mather & Platt engineering works at Newton Heath in Manchester. The crowds of workers are painted in Lowry's characteristic style as "matchstalk" figures, all walking in a uniform direction towards the focal point of the factory gate to the left of the picture.{{sfn|Woodman|2017|p=195}} Beyond the gate, the figures continue filing into an array of ancillary factory buildings. In the background can be seen the turret of the Mather building, and in the foreground, the ends of a pair of red Manchester Corporation buses protrude into the field of view. Distant barrage balloons fly above the factory buildings.{{sfn|Spalding|Leber|1987|p=106}}

The pale-coloured ground was previously thought to represent a layer of snow, but art historians now consider this to be an evocation of industrial haze.

The painting is signed in the bottom-left corner "L.S.LOWRY 1943".{{sfn|Spalding|Leber|1987|p=106}}

{{External media | width = 210px | float = right | headerimage = File:Going to Work - L S Lowry (detail).jpg | video1 =[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzxMKrF9e2A IWM North video about restoring Going to Work]{{cite video|title=Lowry's 'Going to Work,' returns to Manchester |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzxMKrF9e2A |website=YouTube.com |publisher=Imperial War Museums |access-date=1 January 2023 |date=29 July 2019|language=en}} }}

Lowry painted the scene during a period of reduced artistic activity in his life. The death of his mother in 1939 took a heavy emotional toll on him, and Lowry produced little during the war. Despite living through two world wars, Lowry was not noted as a prolific war artist. During World War II, he served as a fire watcher in Manchester{{sfn|Spalding|Leber|1987|p=131}} and produced a small number of paintings in the 1940s capturing the aftermath of the Manchester Blitz, among them After the Blitz and Blitzed Site, but other works of this time bear no visual evidence of wartime activity.{{sfn|Andrews|1977|p=82}}{{sfn|Howard|2000|p=64}}

Going to Work was commissioned in 1943 by the War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC) as part of an initiative to create a visual record of Britain during the years of World War II. The project involved a body of work by over 400 official war artists who captured scenes of the war effort.{{cite web |title=Group - National Portrait Gallery |url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/group/1130/World%20War%20II:%20Official%20War%20Artists |website=www.npg.org.uk |access-date=13 January 2023}}{{cite web |title=Lowry's 'Going to Work' returns to Manchester |url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/lowrys-going-to-work-returns-to-manchester |website=Imperial War Museums |access-date=13 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210501123858/https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/lowrys-going-to-work-returns-to-manchester |archive-date=1 May 2021 |language=en |date=2021 |url-status=live}}{{sfn|Spalding|Leber|1987|p=106}}

The WAAC wanted to reflect the important role of heavy industry in the war effort, and so Lowry's contribution was a scene of workers going into an engineering factory. He was paid 25 guineas for the commission and it was completed in three months. Allen Andrews notes that Going to Work is a typical example of a Lowry industrial scene, and that there is nothing in Lowry's image to distinguish it as "war art" except for the addition of a pair of barrage balloons, inflatable objects that were used to deter enemy bombers during air raids.{{sfn|Andrews|1977|p=82}}{{sfn|Spalding|Leber|1987|p=106}}

When the painting was finished, it was displayed in a number of exhibitions in Britain and internationally. After World War II, Going to Work was given to the collection of the Imperial War Museum and was held in storage in London for many years. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1976.{{sfn|Spalding|Leber|1987|p=106}}

In 2019 the piece was brought out of storage and underwent restoration. It is now on public display in the Imperial War Museum North, alongside works by other artists such as Flora Lion and Anna Airy.

Another watercolour piece by Lowry of the same title was painted in 1959. It depicts a similar scene to his 1943 oil painting, with crowds of workers filing into factory buildings, and the two works have some common architectural elements. Formerly held in the collection of Salford Museum and Art Gallery, the watercolour is now on public display in The Lowry at Salford Quays.{{sfn|Levy|1975|p=117}}{{sfn|Rohde|2007|p=188}}

The Mather & Platt works depicted in Lowry's painting were built in 1900 and stood for many years after the war. The factory continued in operation until it finally closed in 2019. The factory buildings have since been demolished.{{cite news |last1=Keeling |first1=Neal |title=Historic factory immortalised in LS Lowry painting to close down |url=https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/historic-factory-immortalised-ls-lowry-13326574 |access-date=13 January 2023 |work=Manchester Evening News |date=13 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230101175252/https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/historic-factory-immortalised-ls-lowry-13326574 |archive-date=1 January 2023 |language=en |url-status=live}}{{cite web |title=Planning Application 129444/FO/2021: Former Mather & Platt Foundry Grimshaw Lane Manchester M40 2BA |url=https://planning.org.uk/app/27/QOOKM3BCMJV00 |website=planning.org.uk |access-date=1 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230101175028/https://planning.org.uk/app/27/QOOKM3BCMJV00 |archive-date=1 January 2023 |language=en |date=8 March 2021 |url-status=live}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |last1=Andrews |first1=Allen |title=The life of L. S. Lowry, 1887-1976 |date=1977 |publisher=London : Jupiter Books |isbn=978-0-904041-60-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeoflslowry1880000andr}}
• {{cite book |last1=Levy|first1=Mervyn |title=The Paintings of L. S. Lowry: Oils and Watercolours |date=1975 |publisher=Jupiter Books |isbn=978-0-904041-23-1 |page=109 |language=en}}
• {{cite book |last1=Howard |first1=Michael |title=Lowry : a visionary artist |date=2000 |publisher=Lowry Press |location=Salford Quays |isbn=978-1-902970-00-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/lowryvisionaryar0000howa |access-date=31 December 2022}}
• {{cite book |last1=Rohde |first1=Shelley |title=L.S. Lowry, a life |date=2007 |publisher=London : Haus |isbn=978-1-904950-49-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/lslowrylife0000rohd}}
• {{cite book|last1=Spalding|first1=Julian|last2=Leber|first2=Michael |title=L.S. Lowry |date=1987|publisher=Oxford : Phaidon |isbn=978-0-7148-2475-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/lslowry0000lowr/page/112}}
• {{cite book |last1=Woodman |first1=Dr Deborah |title=The Story of Manchester |date=1 August 2017 |publisher=The History Press |isbn=978-0-7509-8494-2 |page=195 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=24IsDwAAQBAJ&dq=ls+lowry+%22going+to+work%22&pg=PT195 |access-date=13 January 2023 |language=en}}

• {{cite web |title=Going to Work |url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/17026 |website=Imperial War Museums |access-date=13 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230113100303/https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/17026 |archive-date=13 January 2023 |language=en |url-status=live}}

{{L. S. Lowry}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Going to Work}}

Category:Paintings by L. S. Lowry

Category:Paintings in the Imperial War Museum

Category:Paintings in Manchester

Category:1943 paintings

Category:Cityscape paintings

Category:Cities in art

Category:Naïve art

Category:War paintings

Category:England in art

Category:Oil on canvas paintings

Category:Snow in art