The River Irwell at the Adelphi, 1924

Pencil on paper

The River Irwell winds through Salford, with a particularly large bend at the Adelphi, near Peel Park. Lowry sketched regularly in this area and the river appears in many of his works. The Irwell was often flooded, as Lowry shows in this drawing. Such scenes may have been the inspiration for his later industrial paintings where lakes or flooded areas feature in the midst of a desolate urban landscape.