Hi Everybody here is a painting and story of Sam's Chop House Manchester by day, I hope you like it
My paintings, stories and videos capture fleeting glimpses of people places and social issues, I aim to bring my cityscape paintings to life in an expressionistic style, blending emotion, movement, and atmosphere to reflect the world as I see it, also turning negatives to positives in my way.
I hope you enjoy exploring my work, and please feel free to share your thoughts or comments — I’d love to hear what you think.
My Motto, BEE Positive.
https://youtu.be/LxpoUZ3oyRg
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A Bit of History
Sam's Chop House is a famous historic pub and restaurant in central Manchester, England, established in 1868 by Samuel Studd. Located on Back Pool Fold, it is renowned for traditional Lancastrian and British food (like its signature corned beef hash) and features a famous bronze statue of artist L.S. Lowry at the bar.
History and Heritage
- Founding: Opened in 1868 by Samuel Studd, whose brother Thomas founded the nearby Mr Thomas's Chop House.
- Relocation: Moved to its current site at Chapel Walks and Back Pool Fold in 1963 following changes and war-era disruptions.
- Famous Patron: The artist L.S. Lowry was a regular visitor, and a permanent bronze statue commemorates him sitting at the bar.
Modern Era: Closed briefly in the late 1990s before being revived and managed under the Victorian Chop House Company.
Story by Andrew Alan Matthews
Sams Chop House Manchester by day
Come here today
Modern Lowry today
Sits at the bar
With bronze statue
Contemplating life
A Mancunian way of life
Strange the difference of men’s talk
Is on his lips
Wandering what Lowry thinking
Is it matchstick men on his mind
What will he paint today
Sams Chop House
Or half the world away
Cos it’s the masterplan
In an oasis plan
Music and arts
In a Mancunian town
Where poetry
of John cooper Clarke
rings the bell
a Salfordian
I can tell
This Modern
Mancunian Artist
Paints his art
With Lowry on his mind
He’s kind
Matchstick men of his own
In a modern scene
He can dream
So Yeah
Sams Chop House Manchester by day
Come here today
Modern Lowry today
Sits at the bar
With bronze statue
Contemplating life
A Mancunian way of life
Strange the difference of men’s talk
He starts to walk
https://youtu.be/LxpoUZ3oyRg
Please write a review and critique on my painting and story of Sam's Chop House Manchester by day.
Review and critique: Sam’s Chop House, Manchester by Day
Painting and story by Andrew Alan Matthews
Andrew, this is a very characterful and ambitious painting, and what makes it particularly interesting is that it isn't simply a picture of Sam’s Chop House. It is trying to create a conversation between Manchester's past and present—between L. S. Lowry, modern Manchester, the people in the street, music, poetry and your own artistic identity.
The accompanying poem strengthens that idea considerably.
Overall impression
I would describe the work as a modern Mancunian urban narrative painting: energetic, colourful and deliberately crowded, with the architecture almost becoming a living character.
The first thing that strikes me is the colour. The reds, ochres, turquoise/blue glass and intense sky give the painting an almost theatrical quality. There is a tremendous amount happening, but that actually suits your subject. Manchester is being presented not as a quiet historical city, but as a place of movement, conversation, culture and people.
The painting also has a strong sense of verticality. The buildings rise dramatically around the central street, while the figures at ground level give the architecture scale. Your eye travels from the sky, down through the modern glass building, into the historic architecture and finally towards the people walking in the foreground.
That is a good compositional metaphor for your poem: past, present and future occupying the same Manchester street.
The strongest aspect: the Manchester identity
I think the most successful thing here is that the painting feels Mancunian rather than merely architectural.
You aren't just painting bricks and windows. You've populated the street with characters, signs, gestures and references. The little figures create a feeling that the city is inhabited rather than exhibited.
The references to Lowry and John Cooper Clarke in the poem help establish your cultural territory:
“Modern Lowry today”
and
“Where poetry
of John cooper Clarke
rings the bell”
This is where your concept becomes much more interesting than a conventional cityscape.
You are effectively saying:
What would Lowry's matchstick people look like if Lowry were walking around Manchester today?
And then you answer that question through your own painting.
That's a strong artistic premise.
The Lowry influence
The Lowry reference is obvious and, I think, intentional. The figures, the urban environment and the idea of ordinary Mancunian life naturally invite comparison with him.
But there is an important distinction.
Your painting isn't really trying to imitate Lowry. It takes some of his conceptual vocabulary—the ordinary people, the city, the compressed urban landscape—and puts it through a much more contemporary, expressive visual language.
Your figures are more animated and colourful. The architecture is more elaborate. The paint treatment is much more energetic.
That makes the phrase:
“Modern Lowry today”
quite effective.
However, I'd be careful about leaning too heavily on the Lowry comparison. As an artist, you want the viewer eventually to say:
“This reminds me of Lowry, but it is Andrew Matthews' Manchester.”
rather than:
“This is an attempt to be Lowry.”
Your poem can help establish that distinction because it explicitly says:
“Matchstick men of his own”
That is probably one of the most important lines in the entire poem.
“Matchstick men of his own” suggests that you acknowledge Lowry but have created your own contemporary inhabitants.
I'd perhaps make that idea even more central.
The architecture
The historic building is beautifully suited to your style.
The strong reds and oranges give Sam's Chop House a warmth that contrasts with the cooler blues and greens behind it. The modern glass building is particularly useful because it establishes the tension between old Manchester and new Manchester.
I also like the way the modern building almost looms behind the older architecture.
It creates a visual question:
Has Manchester changed—or has it simply built a new layer over its old identity?
That's a very good subject for a Manchester painting.
One criticism
There is perhaps almost too much visual information.
Your painting has so many lines, windows, architectural details, figures, signs and colour changes that the viewer doesn't always have an obvious place to rest.
The chaos is part of the appeal, but a stronger hierarchy could make the painting even more powerful.
For example, you could have made three things particularly dominant:
- Sam's Chop House
- the Lowry statue/reference
- the contemporary Manchester people
Everything else could then support those three elements.
At present, the architecture sometimes competes with the human story.
The people
The figures are arguably the heart of the painting.
This is where the Lowry concept really comes alive.
They aren't simply decorative figures added to give scale. They suggest a modern procession of Mancunian characters.
There is humour in them, but also something slightly surreal. They look as though they belong to your own visual world.
That is important.
If you continue developing this style, I would encourage you to push the individuality of these characters even further.
Rather than simply having figures walking through the scene, give some of them tiny stories:
- someone looking into a window
- someone talking to another person
- someone rushing somewhere
- someone staring at Lowry
- someone looking at their phone
- someone sitting alone
- someone apparently lost in thought
That would reinforce the poem's theme of “contemplating life.”
The bronze statue idea
The line:
“Sits at the bar
With bronze statue
Contemplating life”
is one of the most intriguing ideas in the poem.
It introduces an almost philosophical dimension.
The modern artist isn't merely having lunch or sitting in a famous Manchester restaurant. He is sitting beside the representation of an earlier Manchester artist and asking:
What does it mean to be a Manchester artist now?
That is much deeper than a straightforward Lowry tribute.
I think this could actually become the central conceptual statement of the work.
The painting could be read as:
One Manchester artist looking at another Manchester artist across time.
That is a compelling story.
Critique of the poem
The poem has a very natural spoken-word quality.
It doesn't feel overly polished or literary—and I actually think that's beneficial here. It sounds like somebody talking about Manchester, rather than somebody writing an academic poem about Manchester.
The repetition of:
“Sam’s Chop House Manchester by day
Come here today
Modern Lowry today”
works almost like a chorus.
That gives the poem a musical structure.
It could almost be performed aloud.
The references to Manchester, Salford, Lowry and John Cooper Clarke create a recognisable cultural landscape without needing to explain it.
Where the poem could be stronger
There are a few places where the wording feels more like a first draft than a finished poem.
For example:
“Strange the difference of men’s talk
Is on his lips”
This is intriguing, but unclear.
What exactly is the “difference of men's talk”?
Is he hearing conversations around him? Is he thinking about how Manchester men have changed since Lowry's time? Is he contemplating modern Mancunian masculinity?
There is potentially a very good idea underneath these lines, but the reader has to work quite hard to find it.
Likewise:
“In an oasis plan”
and
“Cos it’s the masterplan”
feel somewhat disconnected from the surrounding imagery.
If “masterplan” has a specific Manchester cultural meaning for you, then I would make that connection clearer. Otherwise, these lines interrupt the otherwise strong flow.
There is also a small but important word choice:
“Wandering what Lowry thinking”
I think you mean:
“Wondering what Lowry's thinking”
“Wandering” means walking/roaming, whereas “wondering” means contemplating.
Interestingly, though, “wandering” could actually work poetically if you deliberately want the artist to be wandering through Manchester while wondering about Lowry. You could even exploit the double meaning.
Your ending
The ending:
“He starts to walk”
is simple, but I like it.
Why?
Because the whole poem has been about contemplation, and eventually contemplation turns into movement.
He has sat.
He has looked.
He has thought about Lowry.
He has thought about Manchester.
And then:
he walks.
That gives the poem an open ending.
We don't know where he is going.
Perhaps that is the point.
The modern Mancunian artist leaves Sam's Chop House and goes back into the city to create his own matchstick men.
That's a satisfying idea.
What I think the work is really about
Beneath the architecture, I think your painting and poem are actually asking a bigger question:
“What does it mean to be a Manchester artist after Lowry?”
Lowry documented an industrial Manchester populated by working people.
You are documenting a different Manchester—one of restaurants, culture, modern architecture, music, street characters, tourism, regeneration and contemporary urban life.
But the people are still there.
And that is the bridge between the two artists.
Lowry painted the Manchester of his time.
You are painting the Manchester of yours.
That is, in my opinion, the strongest justification for calling yourself a “Modern Lowry.”
Not because you paint exactly like Lowry, but because you are doing something analogous:
looking at ordinary people and the city around them and turning contemporary Mancunian life into art.
My artistic assessment
Composition: 8/10
Very dynamic and ambitious, although some areas could benefit from greater visual hierarchy.
Colour: 9/10
One of the painting's major strengths. The reds, turquoise, blues and ochres create an unmistakably expressive atmosphere.
Sense of place: 9.5/10
Extremely strong. It feels like a particular city rather than a generic urban scene.
Character: 9/10
The figures give the painting personality and humour.
Originality: 8/10
The Lowry connection is familiar, but your combination of contemporary figures, architectural distortion, colour and cultural references gives it its own identity.
Poem/story: 8/10
Strong concept and voice. It would benefit from another editing pass to clarify a few phrases while retaining its informal Mancunian speech.
Overall: 8.5/10
My biggest recommendation
Don't try to make this more “perfect.”
The slightly wild architecture, exaggerated perspective, intense colours and eccentric figures are part of its personality.
What I would refine is the story, not the energy.
I'd make the narrative clearer:
Lowry → modern Manchester → the artist → ordinary Mancunians → contemplation → the artist walks back into the city.
That gives you a powerful cycle.
And I would seriously consider making “Matchstick men of his own” a key line in the final version of the poem.
Because that sentence essentially explains your artistic position:
Lowry had his matchstick men.
Andrew Matthews has his.
That is where the painting stops being merely a tribute to Manchester's artistic heritage and becomes a statement about your own place within it.
“Sam's Chop House Manchester by Day” therefore works best not as a painting about Lowry, but as a painting about a modern Manchester artist standing in Lowry's shadow—and deciding to walk out and paint his own Manchester.