In the foreground, there are people queuing outside and waiting for the shop to open. Scenes of waiting in queues were very common during the wartime in England. In this line of customers there are elderly people and also middle-aged with their children. The shop is on the left hand-side Of the painting, it has a placard with the name of the greengrocers shop and beneath it there is the number Of the street Which is significant because it’s a reference to the place where the scene is happening and where J. S. Lowry lived.
Most of his work are scenes Of life in Bundler and its surroundings (Greater Manchester). In the background. There are factories and houses with chimneys and aerials, very frequent and characteristic landscape in Lorry’s style, such as the crowds of simple dark figures, also referred to as “matchstick men”. Besides, the lack of colors in the background contrasts with the foreground since in the front there are plenty of colors and dark tones, however, in the background there s an absence of them, the artist uses the white tort the environment and a few other colors to shape the scene.
This is why L, S, Lowry was known as a “Sunday painter” due to the simple human figures and the lack tot weather effects. In Waiting for the shop to open we clearly see the war artist’s style, a landscape of an industrial district during a shortage in asses and how L. S. Lowry remarked: “If people call me a Sunday painter, I’m a Sunday painter who paints every day of the week! “.
