In 2013 Tate Britain will present a major exhibition of landscapes by the much loved British painter L.S. Lowry (1887-1976). This is the first such show held by a public institution in London since the artist's death. It results from an invitation extended to the distinguished art historians T.J. Clark and Anne M. Wagner to reappraise Lowry for a new and extended audience. This exhibition takes its title from T.J. Clark's seminal book, The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers (1985).
Bringing together around eighty works, including Tate's own pictures Coming Out of School 1927 and The Pond 1950, alongside significant loans, the show aims to re-assess Lowry's contribution as part of a wider art history and to argue for his achievement as Britain's pre-eminent painter of the industrial city.