oil on board , 90.2 x 116.8 cm ( 35 1/2 x 45 3/4 in)
signed and dated lower left; inscribed on reverse: “Completed April 1963, St Ives”.

Alan Lowndes was born in Stockport, Cheshire, the fifth child of a railway clerk. He left school at the age of fourteen and was apprenticed to a painter-decorator. During World War Two he served in the Middle East, Austria and in Italy. While in Italy towards the end of the war he was able to visit the churches in Florence and Siena and was able to attend an art course in Florence after the war ended. “Fra Angelico, Benozzo Gozzoli, Michelangelo hit me like a brick. ...