He loved the work of the Mexican muralists, particularly Jose Clemente Orozco, but they were, he found, national-minded and tended not to mix with foreigners.

ECONOMIST: 20th-century art

There are also hints of contact with all sorts of other art, from the Mexican muralists of the 1920s and '30s to the Chicago imagists of the '60s and '70s.

WSJ: An Emerging Democracy's Far-Ranging Art | 'Midnight to the Boom: Painting in India After Independence | Peabody Essex Museum | By Tom L. Freudenheim

As to possible regional forebears, he has neither the epic vision of the Mexican muralists (whom he admires) nor the modernist commitments of earlier 20th-century Latin Americans such as Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Wilfredo Lam or Roberto Matta.

ECONOMIST: Latin American painting

Lowry belongs to the powerful tradition of northern European expressionism and, among his many affinities, Spencer compares with the great Mexican muralists such as Diego Rivera: fittingly, the travelling Spencer show has also been in Mexico city.

ECONOMIST: Singular visions