"It has always been suspected that under many finished Lowry paintings hides a multitude of changes and different pictures - if only because we know Lowry often reused canvasses, especially during the war in the 1940s"...

The painter regularly visited Seaburn... At the height of his fame, when Lowry was known throughout the world, he could have travelled anywhere he wanted, yet he spent weeks at a time on the North East coastal resort.

A biographical chronology.

...a famous English artist born in Manchester. He lived mainly in nearby Salford... He had a highly distinctive style of painting, which often involved "matchstick men" figures of distant people in industrial scenes, using drab colours.

You see, I'm a very lonely man. But I like to be lonely. I can go where I please. I don't have to worry about anybody. Had I not been lonely, none of my work would have happened.

His work is a most distinctive and comprehensive record of the pre- and post World War Two northern industrial town.

The L S Lowry Collection now numbers arouind 350 paintings and drawings, ranging across Lowry's artistic career.

According to one song sung by schoolchildren and on the 70s hit single by Brian and Michael, LS Lowry painted "matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs".