| |
JAMES HYMAN GALLERY
Leon Kossoff, b.1926 Please click here to return to thumbnails.
Leon Kossoff
1926
Born in London.
1938-43
Attended Hackney Downs School, London.
1939-43
Evacuated with school to King’s Lynn, Norfolk. Lived with Mr. And Mrs. R.C. Bishop who encouraged his interest in art. Made his first paintings.
1943
Returned to London. Attended life drawing classes at Toynbee Hall, Commercial Street and St. Martin’s School of Art, London.
1943-45
Commercial art course at St. Martin’s School of Art.
1945-48
Military service with Royal Fusiliers, attached to 2nd Battalion Jewish Brigade. Served in Italy, Belgium, Holland and Germany.
1949-53
Studied at St. Martin’s School of Art and the Borough Polytechnic, where he and fellow pupil, Frank Auerbach, were taught by David Bomberg.
1953-56
Studied at the Royal College of Art.
1956
Joined Helen Lessore’s Beaux Arts Gallery, Bruton Place, London.
1959-69
Taught at Regent Street Polytechnic, Chelsea School of Art, and St. Martin’s School of Art.
1966
Moved studio to Willesden Green.
1972-5
Occupied an additional studio in Dalston Lane, north London.
1976
First Kilburn Underground paintings.
1995
Represented Britain at the Venice Biennale.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2002
Leon Kossoff, Annandale Galleries, Sydney
Leon Kossoff: Drawn to Painting after Poussin, Rubens and Other Related Works, Pillsbury & Peters Fine Art, Dallas, Texas
2000
Leon Kossoff, Annely Juda Gallery, London
1996
Leon Kossoff, Tate Gallery, London
1995
Leon Kossoff, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
1988; 1993
Leon Kossoff, Anthony D’Offay Gallery, London
1984
Leon Kossoff, Fischer Fine Art, London
1983
Leon Kossoff, Hirschl and Adler Modern, New York
1982
Leon Kossoff, L.A. Louver, Los Angeles
1981
Leon Kossoff, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
1973;1975;1979
Leon Kossoff, Fischer Fine Art, London
1972
Leon Kossoff, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
1966
Leon Kossoff, Marlborough Fine Art, London
1979 and 1984
Leon Kossoff, Fischer Fine Art, London
1957-1964
Leon Kossoff, Six exhibitions at the Beaux Arts Gallery, London
Selected Group Exhibitions
2006
Portraits, James Hyman Gallery, London
2005
Fifty Years of British Landscape Painting, James Hyman Gallery, London
2003
From Life: Andrews, Auerbach, Bevan, Bomberg, Coldstream, Kossoff, Sickert, Uglow, James Hyman Gallery, London
2002
Twentieth Century British paintings and drawings, James Hyman Gallery, London
2001
Auerbach, Bacon, Freud, Kossoff, James Hyman Gallery, London
Selected Collections
Tate Collection, London
MoMa Collection, New York
National Galleries of Scotland
Selected Bibliography
Elliott, David, introduction to exhibition catalogue, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1981
Gowing, Lawrence, ‘Here Comes the Diesel’, introduction to exhibition catalogue, Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London, 1988
Hyman, James ‘The Prints of Leon Kossoff’, Print Quarterly, 1993
Hyman, James ‘Leon Kossoff’, Modern Painters, Spring 1993
Hyman, James, ‘Leon Kossoff’,Tate magazine, Summer 1996
Hyman, James, exhibition catalogue, Auerbach, Bacon, Freud, Kossoff, James Hyman Fine Art, 10 May - 22 July 2000
Hyman, James, The Battle for Realism, Yale University Press, 2001
Hyman, James ‘From Tragedy to Joie de Vivre: Some Thoughts on the Work of Bacon, Freud, Kossoff and Auerbach’, exhibition catalogue, Bacon, Freud, Kossoff, Auerbach, Galerie Sander, Berlin, 2003
Hyman, James, ‘Radical Figuration’, From Life, exhibition catalogue, James Hyman Fine Art, 10 September - 18 October 2003
Mercer, David, introduction to exhibition catalogue, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1972
Moorhouse, Paul, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London, 1996
Sylvester, David, Rudi Fuchs, exhibition catalogue, Venice Biennale, 1995
Artist Statement
Leon Kossoff (b.1926) is one of the most important figurative painters at work today and is commonly assoictaed with a circle of School of London painters that includes Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and R.B. Kitaj.
At the centre of Kossoff's work is the human figure either in isolation or in urban or domestic settings and the subject is always intimately known, whether it be the seated studio subject or people in the streets of the city.
| |
