If you hop on the new Metro-line tram from central Manchester heading towards Salford Quays, you’ll discover a transformed waterway lined with sleek apartment and office buildings where old factories and cramped housing once stood. This area is where the artist LS Lowry grew up, and it’s also home to The Lowry in Manchester, an arts center named after Salford’s beloved son, showcasing a collection of 400 of his paintings and drawings.

Lawrence Lowry distinguished himself by painting the industrial scenes he saw around Salford, rather than idyllic landscapes. He moved to the area as a young man after his father’s sudden death brought financial hardship. Initially, he disliked the area, but over time, it grew on him. He worked there as a clerk and rent collector, which helped him connect with the industrial landscape and its people.

Before visiting, I only knew LS Lowry for his famous ‘matchstick men’ set against smoky factory backdrops. But I left with a deeper understanding of him as both a simple, unpretentious man who painted what was in front of him and a complex individual whose loneliness and frustrations were reflected in his art. He lovingly cared for his mother until she passed away, yet felt he never met her expectations of what an artist should be. He never married but frequently painted a mysterious dark-haired girl named ‘Anne’ and kept images of pre-Raphaelite Rossetti heroines in his bedroom.

Lowry lived alone, seeing himself as an observer who recorded what he saw without judgment. However, there’s an aspect of the artist in those unemotional faces and figures, grouped yet each person slightly separated from the others. Later in life, he painted featureless sea studies of the North Sea, with tones of white and grey depicting an empty seascape. The exhibition revealed that his work encompassed much more than the typical industrial scenes of the 1930s and 1940s, showcasing portraits from his early part-time studies and life drawing classes. One notable piece started as a normal portrait but transformed into an angry red-eyed figure during a moment of frustration.

After watching a short film at the exhibition, I came away with the image of Lowry as a complex man whose relentless drawing and painting captured the working people and factory workers of Salford, as well as the down-and-outs he saw on the streets, with an unblinking eye. He led an isolated life by choice, without self-pity, yet he had a sense of mischief, enjoyed a good story, and kept a suitcase by the front door to pretend he was just leaving if unwanted fans knocked.

The Lowry in Manchester was constructed as a Millennium project in the Salford Quays area, designed by architect Michael Wilford. From a distance across the Salford Canal, its different shapes come together to resemble a ship. Approaching it from the canal-side walk from the Salford Quays metro-line stop, the building appears cold with its steel and glass exterior, but inside it’s filled with vibrant colors. I especially loved the warm shades of red, orange, and yellow in the lower corridors, providing a cozy contrast to the stark landscape outside.

The Lowry is a lively arts center with continually changing exhibitions, two main theatres, a studio theatre, a restaurant and terrace bar overlooking the canal, and a coffee shop on the ground floor. It’s family-friendly, offering rucksacks full of children’s activities, art trail leaflets, family talks on weekends, and a family corner where kids under five can play and try drawing. The Lowry also manages the Lowry archive collection of letters, photographs, and other memorabilia, available for viewing by scholars with an appointment. The Lowry Favourites exhibition is free, though donations for collection maintenance are appreciated.

The Lowry, Pier 8, Salford Quays, M50 3AZ.