IT’S an unusual look for a civic portrait – the Lord Mayor of Bradford standing in his underpants in the middle of the city centre.

Artist Sean Durkin has painted the tongue-in-cheek LS Lowry-style scene as a nod to a notorious art theft.

Sean, 53, is the son of the late John Durkin, who hit the headlines in 1972 when he stole a Lowry painting from the old Art Gallery in Middlesbrough.

After taking the picture, he demanded the local mayor raffle off his underpants in aid of cancer research, in order to secure its safe return.

He also demanded that the gallery be opened on Sundays “to allow the working man to get some culture”.

Only a boy of eight at the time, Sean remembers coming downstairs the following morning to find the stolen painting on the mantelpiece.

He was fascinated by the atmosphere of the painting and its ‘matchstick’ people, and the painting would ultimately inspire him to become an artist himself.

Sean, a plumber from Middlesbrough, said he then began creating his own Lowry-inspired scenes.

He said: “I started doing them as a joke for people. I’d say, ‘Here’s a copy of the painting my dad pinched’.”

He has now set himself the task of painting similar scenes of all 23 Lord Mayors of England to raise money for charity.

This is the sixth city, after Manchester, York, Newcastle, Leeds and Hull, to get the Lord-Mayor-in-underpants treatment.

In the Bradford oil painting – unsurprisingly, not from a real-life sitting – Councillor Geoff Reid stands in his chain, robes and red-and-white Y-fronts, alongside his wife, Lady Mayoress Chris.

The scene also includes City Hall’s tower, the Bradford Brewery and passers-by wearing claret and amber Bradford City scarves. In each painting, there are also hidden references to Sean’s father’s protest – a policeman and burglar as well as a shopfront emblazoned with the name Artem Fur, Latin for ‘art theft’.

Yesterday, Sean took the finished painting of Bradford to City Hall for the Lord Mayor to sign.

Cllr Reid, a retired Methodist minister, took the unusual stunt in good humour, saying: “I just want to know how he knows what sort of pants I wear!”

But Sean said he was always ready with a black pen, to hastily add some trousers, if any Lord Mayors fail to see the funny side.

Cllr Reid described the painting as unique, saying: “It’s clearly a one-off sort of event.”

The artwork will be sold off to raise money for Cancer Research UK, and prints going on sale for £20 will also raise cash for the charity.

The Lady Mayoress said they would have to buy one of the prints.