UK television personality Cilla Black’s three paintings by L.S. Lowry may fetch the equivalent of $1.2 million when they are sold at Sotheby’s in London.Black - described as a national celebrity and treasure by British newspapers when she died last year – was an admirer of Lowry, one of England’s best-loved artists. His “matchstick-men” style is shown in the trio of works for auction on June 13. They have a total estimate of £520,000 to £830,000 at hammer prices.Black, a pop star backed by the Beatles, went on to a successful television career which helped her art buying. She died suddenly at the age of 72 after a fall at her villa in Spain.She had been introduced to collecting by Brian Epstein, the Beatles manager, who showed her various artists’ works. She started to acquire them as money came flooding into her account.On such is Lowry’s “Family Group” from 1938. It has an estimate £300,000 to £500,000 and is a slice of the northern working-class life that Cilla and her manager-husband Bobby Willis had grown up with.Lowry did not paint from life, but this lifelike family conveys the problems of poverty and their steadfast desire to break free.“The Black Church” from 1964 is forecast to sell for £120,000 to £180,000. This painting was bought by Bobby for his wife’s 50th birthday. He purchased it mainly for the title, fitting her stage name, and it was a surprise, later hanging in their living room for years. This is a trademark naïf image, with the childish spire surrounded by factory smokestacks and scurrying figures. It is recognizably a Lowry, and indeed could only be such.Black’s other Lowry, “The Spire,” from 1949 (estimate £100,000-£150,000) has meticulously-drawn though again imagined architecture. Its period figures are bent and may be fighting winter chill. The image recalls the dark overtones of his much earlier work and recalls the paintings of Adolphe Valette, who travelled from France to depict northenr English streets in similar ominous overtones.Sotheby’s specialist Simon Hucker said that Lowry drew the world known by Black, who was born Priscilla White.Black’s sons said in a statement released by the auction house that the couple only purchased pictures that they absolutely loved and related to. Each of the pictures showed family life and day-to-day scenes and the family lived with them accordingly. Their father had a good sense of appreciation and knew what his famous wife would like. They were married for 30 years until his death in 1999.The working-class culture Lowry showed in his works mirrored her own Liverpudlian background and which she deliberately never lost, right down to her catchphrases such as “All right, Chuck?” and “Lorra, lorra laughs.”Sotheby’s evening sale of Modern & Post-War British Art takes place in London on June 13 2016.
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