Alan Lowndes (1921-1978)
Alan Lowndes is known mainly as painter in oils of the industrial north of England in a bright palette. He was born in Stockport, Cheshire, left school at 14 and became apprenticed to a decorator. After spending World War II in the army, Lowndes studied painting in the evenings at Stockport College, and started painting full-time in the late-1940’s. He was early on taken up by The Crane Kalman Gallery in Manchester, where he had a number of one man shows, later showing at Crane Kalman, London. He also showed solo in New York, in Southport and had retrospectives at The Stockport Art Gallery and tour in 1972 ,and posthumously at Crane Kalman in 1995. From the early-1950’s Lowndes began to work in St Ives, Cornwall, settling in the area for just over a decade in 1959. He later settled in Dursley, Gloucestershire, but periodically returned to Stockport to work.
