Belgian-born Cecilia Lyon is a graduate of the University of Brussels. Before moving to Manchester in 2002, she lived in Paris and the south of France. On her arrival, Cecilia Lyon soon visited the Manchester Art Gallery and discovered the paintings by the French Impressionist Adolphe Valette (who was also the art tutor of L. S. Lowry), which stunned her. She was impressed by the dynamism and the atmospheric colours of the city, as they were similarly rendered by Valette in his Manchester-scapes one century earlier. While her British husband, who hails from 'Lowry’s territory' near Pendlebury, was going back to his roots and sharing them with her, she was consequently confronted with the dual panorama of the area, the grandeur of Manchester and the ordinary world portrayed by Lowry.
Cecilia Lyon has by now written two books on Valette. She is also a curator, and is known for having curated, in 2011–2012, the blockbusting exhibition at The Lowry, in Salford, 'Adolphe Valette, a Pioneer of Impressionism in Manchester'. Cecilia Lyon's latest publication, Adolphe Valette & L. S. Lowry, explores – unprecedentedly and comprehensively – the artistic relationship between Lowry and his art tutor Valette.
