FOR COLLECTION IN PERSON ONLY; CAN DELIVER LOCALLY

Joe Dwan passed away in February 2012 at the age of 82. I first came across his work at a local art exhibition in the late nineties and my immediate “feel” was a Lowry look-alike, but I was wrong. The subject matter was the same, the industrial streets of a northern city, in fact Ancoats, Manchester where Joe grew up (I too am a Mancunian). But the style was different, Joe had worked full-time for national newspapers as a cartoonist his unique style that spilled over into his watercolours, a medium that does not forgive, and the content was much closer to the vicissitudes of working class people finding colour amongst red-brick factories and smoky-red brick-lined streets. Joe later became a fireman based in Manchester close to home in Ancoats. In 1999 I asked Joe to use photographs preserved in the Central Library to inspire the production of ten watercolours that depicted life on the streets as he remembered it. I recall him telling me how excited he was to discover a photograph of the nondescript two-up-two-down terraced house in which he was born. Apparently Joe gave up Art College because he could not get on with the tutor, a gentleman called Lowry.

This painting is titled AFTER THE MAY DAY PARADE, MANCHESTER

The window measures 30 x 18 cm in a frame 42 x 30 cm. An original watercolour signed by the artist.