Leon Kossoff

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Leon Kossoff (Born 1926) is a British expressionist painter, who mainly paints portraits, life drawings, and cityscapes of London

Leon Kossoff was born in 1926 in Islington London, and spent most of his early life living there with his Russian Jewish parents. In 1938 he attended the Hackney Downs school in London, when he left in 1943 he went to the St Martin’s school of art and studied commercial art, He also attended life drawing classes in the evenings at Toynbee Hall.

After his education was finished he spent three years in military service with the Royal fusiliers, attached to the 2nd battalion Jewish brigade, and served in Italy, Holland, Belgium and Germany. After his military service he returned to the St Martin’s school of art in 1949, and took special classes under David Bomberg from 1950 to 1952. He was also influenced by another one of his teacher’s students, Frank Auerbach. Both young artists dealt with similar emotions and subject matter in their work and employed heavy impasto in their paintings. Kossoff chose his subject matter mostly from the area of London where he was born.

In 1959 he began to teach at the Regent street polytechnic, the Chelsea school of art, and the St Martin’s school of art, all of which are in London, and whilst teaching he continued his artistic career, and soon started featuring in many galleries and shows, along with his friend Frank Auerbach and other artists, such as Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

A selection of Leon Kossoff's work is currently being exhibited at the National Gallery, London, entitled "Leon Kossoff: Drawing from Painting".

[edit] References

1.List of Leon Kossoff works on Tate Online
2.Leon Kossoff on artnet
3.Leon Kossoff on World Wide Art Resources
4.Leon Kossoff: Drawing from Painting National Gallery