Salford's city mayor is appealing to the region's super-rich football stars to band together to buy the famous LS Lowry painting 'Going to the Match'. The 1953 painting owned by the Professional Footballers' Association is set to go under the hammer at Christie's next month and could fetch up to £8m, says the auction house.
Mayor Paul Dennett is worried the iconic image of fans going to watch a Bolton Wanderers match at Burnden Park not far from the painter's home in Pendlebury may disappear from public view. Mr Dennett and Julia Fawcett, chief executive of the Lowry museum and gallery where the painting is displayed, say the new owner should keep it freely accessible to the public.
"My fear is that a work that has been publicly available at the Lowry for 22 years, that champions the work of one of our great artists, is potentially going to be lost from public view and public access," he told the Guardian newspaper. "I'd like to make a personal plea for the footballing community here in Greater Manchester to look at retaining this painting for the people of Greater Manchester.
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"There's a lot of money in that community, so finding £8m-plus wouldn't be too difficult." Mr Dennett continued: "Lowry captured working-class life and celebrated the football community. This isn’t about superstar salaries, this is about the institutional role of football in our communities.
"For this to be lost from Lowry’s artistic ecosystem, which is held by the city of Salford, would be a huge tragedy and scandal.” Ms Fawcett said it had been the norm for Lowry paintings being bought by private individuals but to 'come straight out of the auction house into our gallery'.
"We'd like to have a conversation with the buyer [of the painting] about the responsibility that comes with owning such a work." The gallery couldn't buy the painting because there was not enough time before the October 19 sale, she said.
Ms Fawcett continued: "This isn’t just any painting. We have school trips, children coming to study the work. It’s clearly linked to the social history of our city. It’s seen not just by traditional art lovers; the painting draws in the ordinary people it represents. We have coachloads of football fans coming in ahead of a match.”
The PFA paid £1.9m, more than four times the estimate, for 'Going to the Match' in 1999. Then chief executive Gordon Taylor described it as 'quite simply the finest football painting ever'.
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