Author Description

The thronging London of Leon Kossoff's paintings, as well as his figures and portraits, seem at once starkly contemporary and evocative of the post-World War II mood. Even when some 40 years apart, the paintings are always unmistakably his, timeless. A radically old-fashioned artist in many ways, he tries to get as close as he can to what he sees. For Kossoff it all begins with the drawing, and this phase may well last for months or years. Then the painting is completed within a few hours. The struggle with the oils and the actual physical weight of the material serves to unify the subject. As with Giacometti, the visual experience is both a means and an end.