14th November 1980
Dear Miss Rohde
I really must write to thank you for your "Private view of L.S. Lowry". When my son told me that he had ordered the book for my 70th birthday I privately wondered whether I really wanted "another Lowry book"; but, as soon as I got into it, I knew that it would be really treasured not only by myself, but by my wife, and my sister who was living with we when we "knew Mr Lowry" and by many others who have admired "my Lowry", which is above me as I type at my desk.
The picture, of a crowd making for "Swinbury Station N&SRY", is a pencil drawing which he gave me when I left Swinton in the spring of 1941, where I had been one of Canon Fletcher's Curates. Mr Lowry offered me a cholce of the pencil drawing and an oil painting of the same subject (I suppose it is the one called "Going to the match" which I have seen referred to but have not seen a print of). When I said I preferred the pencil one he agreed (a polite habit which you mention in your book) and said that he would like himself to arrange for it to be suitably framed.
I got to know Mr Lowry through having lodged next door to 117, with a Miss Wardiey and her mother before going to live with my sister at 14 Weilingion Road. This was in 1938, and I saw the prints that Mr Lowry had lent the Wardley's of his pictures at that Lefevre Gallery exhibition. I am not an art connoisseur; but I could see that his urban pictures were telling me something about the Salford scene that I already partly knew. I asked if I could meet him, but this was not of course possible until some time after his mother's death. Then I did meet him, and so did my sister and, later my wife, and had a good deal of talk with him, as well as seeing and admiring many of his pictures. He came to the Youth Fellowship once, and to the public gallery of the Town Council, and to our engagement party. I felt I learned something from him of what it means to be a real artist, and, in particular, why he gave up painting urban scenes when at last they became popular. He told me that he preferred to earn his living in an office job, so that he need not go on painting a sort of picture that customers had taken a fancy to, as Mr Mullins did.
Our slight acquaintance with Mr Lowry ceased when I left for Birmingham, but my admiration of his talent, and of his passion for artistic integrity, continues. It is not diminished by your revelation of his defensive deviousness, which explains a good deal that was previously puzzling.
I have certainly enjoyed your book and have leamed a good deal from it. It confirms the little that I did know of Mr Lowry, and tells me a great deal not only about him, but about his various and very interesting friends.
You must have done a great deal of work in preparing the book; but, unlike so many painstaking researches, the result has been worth it all. I hope that it also may be financially rewarding, and that it may lead you on to other good work.
Yours sincerely
George Jager