Going to Work

External videos
IWM North video about restoring Going to Work[5]

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^[6] 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.^[7][8]

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.^[9][3][4]

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.^[7][4][3]

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.^[4] 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.^[3]

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.^[10][11]

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.^[12][13]

• Andrews, Allen (1977). The life of L. S. Lowry, 1887-1976. London : Jupiter Books. ISBN 978-0-904041-60-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• Levy, Mervyn (1975). The Paintings of L. S. Lowry: Oils and Watercolours. Jupiter Books. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-904041-23-1.
• Howard, Michael (2000). Lowry : a visionary artist. Salford Quays: Lowry Press. ISBN 978-1-902970-00-4. Retrieved 31 December 2022.
• Rohde, Shelley (2007). L.S. Lowry, a life. London : Haus. ISBN 978-1-904950-49-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• Spalding, Julian; Leber, Michael (1987). L.S. Lowry. Oxford : Phaidon. ISBN 978-0-7148-2475-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• Woodman, Dr Deborah (1 August 2017). The Story of Manchester. The History Press. p. 195. ISBN 978-0-7509-8494-2. Retrieved 13 January 2023.

• "Going to Work". Imperial War Museums. Archived from the original on 13 January 2023. Retrieved 13 January 2023.