Name: The Notice Board
Brand: L S Lowry
Rating: 5 (236 reviews)

Track auction value trend

The value of L S Lowry’s The Notice Board (signed) is estimated to be worth between £1,750 and £2,600. Over the past 12 months, the artwork has sold twice, with an average selling price of £1,800. This lithograph print from 1975 has shown consistent value growth, with an auction history of 12 total sales since its entry to the market in October 2012. The hammer price has ranged from £750 in September 2023 to £2,500 in December 2020. The average annual growth rate of this work is -9%. This work is from a limited edition of 500.

Meaning & Analysis

L. S. Lowry’s lithograph print The Notice Board from 1975 is one of the artist’s more abstract scenes, showing a group of people walking up a hill in front of a gloomy seascape. The central focus of the print is a tall notice board that the figures gather together to look at.

This highly unusual scene, with very little context behind the notice board, encapsulates Lowry’s interest in showing the ways in which people from all walks of life gather together and where this takes place. Appearing like a scene from a dream, The Notice Board is very clearly created from Lowry’s imagination, elusive in its depiction of the sea as a backdrop, and faint depictions of sailing boats.

Characteristic of many of Lowry’s paintings, this scene is filled with a flat, white, polluted light that renders the sky and sea almost undifferentiated. The depiction of a single hill in the foreground of the image, conveys a narrative that these figures are stranded in the middle of the sea. Created late in Lowry’s career, this gives the print an atmosphere of melancholic loneliness, described by art historian John Rothenstein as ‘a kind of gloomy lyricism’, something that runs through many of the artist’s paintings of people.

Born in 1887, L. S. Lowry was a key figure in 20th century British painting. Known for his distinctive painterly style and 'matchstick men', Lowry aimed to put industry on the map by typically focusing on scenes from his hometown in the North West of England. The naivety of his art drew criticism, yet has stood the test of time with the artist becoming a household name. Lowry has consistently performed in the secondary market, with works such as Going To The Match achieving a value of £2,919,000 in 2021 and the editioned prints remaining highly sought after.