Portrait of Ann

Dating from 1957 this picture by L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) is one of his most famous portraits, and we viewed it today in the Lowry art gallery at Salford Quays.

Opinion remains divided as to the identity of the subject.

Although Lowry had painted portraits before, Portrait of Ann was seen as a major departure from his usual images of industrial scenes and millscapes — not least because he very rarely used women as his subjects.

The artist described the style of the painting as being "modernist", explaining that the sitter "did not want her picture to be realistic; it had to be stylised."

Upon its eventual exhibition, the painting was criticised by the art critic G.S. Whittet in the August 1958 edition of The Studio as having a "crudely stylised face", but it was not without its supporters; Nesta Ellis, writing for the Sphinx art journal, thought the painting "gave the impression of an impassive yet willful woman".

Ann was never sold at auction, but instead remained the property of the artist until it was bequeathed to Salford Museum and Art Gallery upon his death in 1976.

Lowry once told the features reporter for the Manchester Guardian that Ann was 25 years old, lived in Leeds and was "the daughter of some people who have been very good to me."
The architect and Manchester academician Frank Bradly, a friend of Lowry's, stated that he had told him she was a pupil of his mother's who had died when she was 25.

The artists Harold Riley and Pat Cooke both claim that Lowry informed them Ann was a friend from Lytham St Annes who died when she was in her early twenties.

When Portrait of Ann was included as part of Manchester City Art Gallery's Lowry retrospective in 1959, however, the exhibition catalogue listed the work as being "lent by the sitter" (named on the index of lenders as a 'Miss Ann Helder').

The mystery of the identity persists!