Lowry: Debt collector by day

Now his work is being celebrated at a new �96m museum in his birthplace of Salford, Greater Manchester.

It was during his 20s that he was introduced to painters of the local industrial scene and began studying the work of the Impressionists.

The two influences were to shape Lowry's work as he became fascinated by mills and the documenting the lives of people who worked in them.

He began exhibiting in Manchester during the 1920s - his most characteristic works being bleak industrial cityscapes and towns dotted with matchstick figures.

These first started to attract serious attention in the 1940s.

Record painting

For most of his life he painted in his spare time and worked as a debt collector and a clerk at the Pall Mall Property Company Ltd in Manchester until he retired at the age of 65.

He was a complex, solitary man, who lived alone. His success in later years brought him little joy and he lived frugally in his house in Longendale, Cheshire, until his death in 1976, at the age of 88, after pneumonia and a stroke.

His work has gained worldwide popularity over the years and his painting entitled Going to the Match was sold at auction to the English Football Association for �1.9m last December, breaking the record for modern art work.