L.S. Lowry’s ‘Coming Out of School’: Painting His Own Gray World

Willard Spiegelman | msn.com | 2nd November 2025

For a long time, Lowry was considered “just” a local painter. His focus was not on some major international art movement but on England’s industrial north. “Coming Out of School” (1927) is one such work, an imagined after-school scene in a grey town with “a sky full of clouds, or smoke from the industrial factory”. It’s a very local scene. One writer links his admiration to the genuine interest Lowry showed in what people do. “I have no idea why that should be so moving.”