LS Lowry’s masterpiece Going to the Match has left its home at The Lowry, Salford and begun a year-long tour of five North West venues. The tour started in December 2023 at Gallery Oldham where the painting will be on display until 24th February 2024. LS Lowry’s painting will then tour to: The Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, the Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead, The National Football Museum, Manchester and finally Bury Art Museum.
The 1953 Lowry painting features football supporters streaming into Burnden Park, the original home of Bolton Wanderers FC. Lowry spent much of his life painting people going about their everyday lives – going to work, to school, to the park and here, going to see a football match. Most of Lowry’s crowds, as in Going to the Match, are painted against a backdrop of Lancashire’s industrial landscape. In fact the majority of fans shown in the painting would probably have been factory workers. Visitors today still see themselves in this work, as the shared experience of going to a football match is in many ways the same as it was in the 1950s.
The painting’s iconic status has thrilled visitors of all ages: those who love art, those who love football and anyone who loves the unique excitement of a ‘match day.’ The tour will mean this painting can be enjoyed by the widest possible audiences across the region. Going to the Match will be a focus and inspiration for creative workshops, projects in schools, family days and commissions to create new artistic responses to it.
Each venue will work with their own audiences, local schools and communities as well as their own local football clubs to develop a programme of events that will reach and engage as many people as possible. The tour has been boosted by a £95,000 grant from Arts Council England through its National Lottery Project Grants programme, and each venue will mount an extensive learning and engagement programme, tailored to their own local audiences and football fans.
Chief Executive of The Lowry, Julia Fawcett O.B.E. said:
“Going to the Match is a masterpiece and for that reason alone, it was important we were able to secure it so that future generations could come and see it, for free, forever.
“Lowry was a great observer of ordinary people, particularly in the industrial landscape and the picture captures that pre-match expectation and excitement. It was so important to us that an artwork which speaks so directly to the people of the North was brought permanently back to where it belongs. Thanks to the wonderful generosity of The Law Family Charitable Foundation we were able to purchase the painting for the City of Salford, and we look forward to returning that generosity by sharing the painting with other venues and communities across the North West of England over the coming months and years.”
Going to the Match Tour Dates:
2 Dec 2023 – 24 Feb 2024 Gallery Oldham
2 Mar 2024 – 30 Mar 2024 The Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool
19 Apr 2024 – 27 Jul 2024 Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead
19 Aug 2024 – 1 Sep 2024 The National Football Museum, Manchester
19 Oct 2024 – 1 Feb 2025 Bury Art Museum
