Paintings by LS Lowry - never seen in public before - are to go on show.

It is hoped the exhibition, entitled Lowry's Travels, will dispel the misconception that the Salford artist painted only grim northern landscapes.

Several landscape pieces by Lowry are of unidentified places, and experts at the Lowry Centre in Salford hope that visitors may be able to solve the mysteries.

A spokeswoman for the centre said: "Throughout his life, Lowry travelled the length and breadth of the country in order to paint and draw what struck him as pictorially significant."

The Lowry Centre is dedicated to the artist

The pictures include disused tin mines in Cornwall, shipping on the Tyne, two men on Penzance Promenade and the towns in the valleys of South Wales.

The display will travel to Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens in July after the Lowry Centre at Salford Quays, where it opens on 18 January.

The Lowry, a stainless steel and glass structure, was opened nearly three years ago and sits on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal.

Among the works held at the centre is a painting called Going To The Match, which broke the record for modern art sales when it fetched �1,926,500 at Sotheby's in 1999.