30 August 2011 Last updated at 09:59 ET

LS Lowry works expected to fetch £370,000

The couple bought Man Posting a Letter direct from Lowry

Four rarely-seen works by LS Lowry, bought by an art-collecting couple in the 60s and 70s, are expected to fetch up to £370,000 at auction.

Man Posting a Letter, with a guide of £160,000-£200,000, is the priciest lot in the 8 September sale at Morphets, Harrogate.

The late couple bought the oil painting directly from the artist in 1967.

Lowry, who died in 1976, was famed for his melancholy portrayal of industrial towns in the north-west of England.

The pieces being offered for auction had previously hung in the unnamed couple's home in Harrogate.

The works were inherited by their children in the last few years, and had recently been stored in a cupboard.

The other paintings in the sale include 1963's Man With a Cart, estimated to fetch £50,000-£70,000, and Group of People, 1965, with an estimate of £55,000-£65,000.

Family Group At The Seaside, a pencil sketch of a cluster of downbeat children surrounding a long-haired man smoking a cigarette, is expected to raise £25,000-£35,000.

All three were bought by the couple in the 1970s from the Lefevre gallery in London.

Man With a Cart is expected to fetch up to £70,000

The gallery held the first major exhibition of Lowry's work in 1938, after its then-director, Alexander Reid spotted some of the Lancashire artist's paintings waiting to be framed.

That exhibition sold eight paintings - one of which went to the Tate Gallery for £15. The Lefevre Gallery went on to host many more shows for Lowry as his star rose.

In May, Lowry's The Football Match, 1949, fetched £5.6m at Christie's in London - a record for the artist.

Two paintings by Lancastrian artist Helen Bradley, also collected by the couple, will be included in the Morphets sale.