Author Description

"The prints and the drawings in this exhibition were all made by Leon Kossoff in the presence of oil paintings in the collection of the National Gallery and the Poussin retrospective at the Royal Academy in London in 1985. His passion for certain painters of the past began in childhood and he began to draw from Old Master paintings as a student in the 1950s. Later the National Gallery gave him out of hours access and he would start early at 7am before the Gallery was open. Armed with charcoal and paper or a metal plate and an etching needle he would draw and redraw repeatedly in an effort to seek afresh an ever more meaningful experience and familiarity with the painting that goes far beyond the merely visual. They "... suggest deep reverence, as well as the possibility of a humbling, liberating engagement with a practitioner from a remote epoch."--From gallery's website.