A SCENE in Accrington immortalised by L.S. Lowry is set to fetch around £400,000 at an auction this week.

The 17x21 inches oil painting entitled 'Canal Scene' was painted by Lowry in 1939.

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Now, 75 years later, the picture is expected to sell for between £300,000 and £500,000 when it is auctioned at Christie’s in London next Wednesday. (November 19)

The year in which he painted the picture was a particularly difficult year for Lowry because it was the year his mother, Elizabeth, died, and it was also the year the Second World War started.

Following his mother's death, the artist said painting was his 'salvation'.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: “In 1939, he painted an anguished portrait of himself with red eyes and a violent stare, which expressed his suffering at his mother’s death and his troubled experiences working as a fire watcher during the war.”

Lowry, who was born in Stretford in 1887, is famous for painting scenes of life in the industrial districts of North West England in the mid-20th century.

He visited Lancashire regularly during his life and painted many scenes including in Clitheroe and Accrington.

Canal Scene depicts a red and white building on the bend in the water, as well as a clock tower in the background.

Lowry also painted four men in the picture in his distinctive 'matchstick man' style, which caused him problems throughout his career as people believed him to be a 'self-taught, part-time, naïve' artist.

A spokesman for the world-famous auctioneers Christie’s, which is in London, said: “Lowry has frequently been described as a painter of loneliness.

"Though many of his paintings, including Canal Scene near Accrington, show groups of people at work or hovering together in clusters, there is a distinct lack of sentimentality, perhaps reflecting the artist’s own detachment.

"The grey industrial haze that substitutes weather effects and shrouds his work in a uniform atmospheric gloom contributes to this perception.”

Today (November 17) an L.S.Lowry oil painting, titled 'A Street In Clitheroe', is expected to sell for between £80,000 and £120,000 at Bonhams in London.

It depicts Moor Lane at the junction with Lowergate and the old methodist church can be seen.

The scene shows the area where Castle Chippy is currently based.

Lowry was fond of Clitheroe and his friends, Josef and Prudence Kunzel, lived at nearby Sawley.

Mr Kunzel’s textile firm had an office in Church Street, Clitheroe.