Leon Kossoff
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Overview
Leon Kossoff, born in 1926 in London to a family of Russian-Jewish descent, was a key figure in the tradition of figurative painting in postwar Britain. His early education at Saint Martin’s School of Art and later at Toynbee Hall laid the foundation for a fruitful career. Kossoff’s artistic development was profoundly influenced by his mentor David Bomberg, a prominent British modernist painter known for his dynamic and expressive use of form. Kossoff, alongside his contemporaries Frank Auerbach and others associated with the ‘School of London’, became known for his emotionally intense and tactile approach to painting.
Kossoff's portraits, life studies, and depictions of London’s urban landscape are marked by a unique interplay of dense, impassioned brushwork and a palpable sense of materiality. His works not only the physicality of his subjects but also the psychological and emotional weight of their presence, achieved through thick, heavily worked layers of paint.
Kossoff’s approach to figuration resisted the ascendancy of abstraction in the postwar period. While numerous artists championed minimalism and conceptualism, Kossoff adhered to a vision that placed the figure at the centre of his practice. His commitment to depicting the human body in all its complexity, as well as his deep engagement with the particularities of place—especially the streets and buildings of London—marks his work as part of the enduring tradition of figurative art.
Kossoff’s impact on British painting was recognized both in his lifetime and posthumously. He exhibited widely, including a major retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1996. His works are held in significant collections, such as the Tate, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Kossoff’s exploration of the interplay between the physical and emotional dimensions of the human experience remains a crucial aspect of his legacy.
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Biography
Education
1943-53 St Martin’s School of Art, London
1953-56 The Royal College of Art, London
Selected Solo Exhibitions
1957 Beaux Arts Gallery, London
1959 Beaux Arts Gallery, London
1961 Beaux Arts Gallery, London
1963 Beaux Arts Gallery, London
1964 Beaux Arts Gallery, London
1968 Marlborough Fine Art, London
1972 Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
1974 Fischer Fine Art, London
1975 Fischer Fine Art, London
1979 Fischer Fine Art, London
1980-81 Riverside Studios, London
1981 Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
Sheffield Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield
1982 L.A. Louver Gallery, California
1983 Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, New York
1984 Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London
Fischer Fine Art, London
L.A. Louver Gallery, California
1988 Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London
Robert Miller Gallery, New York, New York
1993 Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London
L.A. Louver, California
1995-96 XLVI Venice Biennale, British Pavilion, Venice, Italy
Düsseldorf Kunstverein; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tate Gallery, London
2000-01 J.Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, New York
Annandale Galleries, Sydney, Australia
2004-05 Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark
Museum of Modern Art Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland
2007 National Gallery, London
2008 Michael Richardson Contemporary Art, London
2009 Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, New York
2010-11 Annadale Galleries, Sydney, Australia
2019 Piano Nobile Gallery, London
2021 L.A. Louver, California
2022 Leon Kossoff: Etchings, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London
Selected Group Exhibitions
1961-62 Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1963 British painting in the 60’s, The Contemporary Art Society, Tate Gallery, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
1964 Tate Gallery, London
1967 Tate Gallery, London
1974 Hayward Gallery, London
1976 Hayward Gallery, London
1977 Royal Academy of Arts, London
1979 Hayward Gallery, London
1981-84 Eight figurative painters: Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, William Coldstream, Lucian Freud, Patrick George, Leon Kossoff, Euan Uglow, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; travelling to Santa Barbara, California 13 Britische Künstler eine Ausstellung über Malerei. [13 British artists: a painting exhibition], Neue Galerie, Aaachen- Sammlung Ludwig; travelling to Mannheim and Braunschweig, Germany
Hard-won image: traditional method and subject in recent British art, Tate Gallery, London, UK
1979-1984 The British Art Show: Old Allegiances and New Directions, City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; toured to Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh; Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield; and Southampton Art Gallery, Southampton
The proper study: contemporary figurative paintings from Britain, Lalit Kala Akademi, Delhi, travelling to Jehangir Nicholson Museum of Modern Art National Centre for Performing Arts, Bombay, India
1985 The British Show, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, travelling to Sydney and Brisbane, Australia
Human interest: fifty years of British art about people, Selected by Norbert Lynton, Cornerhouse, Manchester
1987-88 British Art in the 20th Century: The Modern Movement, Royal Academy of Arts, London
Current affairs: British painting and sculpture in the 1980’s, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, travelling to Budapest, Hungary; Prague, Czechoslovakia and Warsaw, Poland
A School of London: six figurative painters, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, travelling to Humlebaek, Denmark; Venice, Italy and Düsseldorf, Germany
Art of our time, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK
British figurative painting: a matter of paint: David Bomberg, Leon Kossoff, Frank Auerbach, John Lessore, Kevin Sinnott, Simon Edmondson, California State University Art Gallery, travelling to Santa Cruz and Rohnert Park, Santa Barbara, USA
British Picture, L.A. Louver Gallery, California
Exhibition Road: Painters at the Royal College of Art, Royal College of Art, London
1989-90 Leon Kossoff / Bill Woodrow, Saatchi Collection, London
Picturing people: British figurative art since 1945, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, travelling to Hong Kong and Singapore
Pursuit of the real: British figurative painting from Sickert to Bacon, City Art Gallery, Manchester, travelling to Barbican Art Gallery, London and Glasgow
Glasgow’s great British art exhibition, Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, Glasgow
1991-93 Da Bacon a oggi: l’outsider nella figurazione Britannica, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy
British figurative painting of the 20th Century, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
1994-95 Visual excitement: een pleidooi voor de schilderkunst, Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
An American passion: The Susan Kasen Summer and Robert D. Summer Collection of Contemporary British Painting, Glasgow Museums, Glasgow, travelling to Royal College of Art, London
Identity and alterity: figures of the body 1985-1995, Palazzo Grassi, Italy
From London: Bacon, Freud, Kossoff, Andrews, Auerbach, Kitaj, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, travelling to Luxembourg; Lausanne, Switzerland; and Barcelona, Spain
1997 A Ilha do Tesouro, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal
Royal Academy illustrated: a souvenir of the 229th summer exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
1998-2001 Head first: portraits from the Arts Council collection, City Gallery, Leicester, travelling to Southampton, Kendal, Newcastle, Bath, Sheffield and Kingston upon Hull
L'école de Londres: de Bacon à Bevan, Fondation Dina Vierny-Musée Maillol, Paris, France
Cleveland Collects Contemporary Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
Sublime: The Darkness and the Light, Works from the Arts Council Collection, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, touring to Street, Lancaster, Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastleupon-Tyne and Ipswich
La mirada fuerte: pintura figurativa de Londres, Museo de Arte Moderno, Ciudad de México, Mexico
Encounters: new art from old, The National Gallery, London
The School of London and their friends: the collection of Elaine and Melvin Merians, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, travelling to Purchase, USA
The Ben Uri story: from art society to museum, and the influence of AngloJewish artists on the modern British movement, Phillips Auctioneers, London
2002-04 Transition: the London art scene in the fifties, Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK
New: recent acquisitions of contemporary British Art, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
Blast to Freeze: British art in the 20th century, Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg, Germany
2005-06 Self-portrait: Renaissance to Contemporary, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK travelling to Sydney, Australia
Passion for paint, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol, travelling to Newcastle upon Tyne and London
How to improve the world: 60 years of British Art, Hayward Gallery, London
2007-12 Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain
Kimbell Art Museum, Forth Worth, Texas
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh
Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
Kulturgeschichtliches Museum, Osnabrück, Germany
Museo de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain
First Center for visual arts, Nashville, Tennessee
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain
Haunch of Venison, London
Abbot Hall Art, Kendal
2013-14 A Dialogue with Nature: Romantic Landscapes from Britain and Germany, The Courtauld Gallery, London
I Cheer a Dead Man’s Sweetheart, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill
2014-15 Museum fur Kunst and Kultur, Münster, Germany
Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2016 The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California
2017 Rosenfeld Porcini, London
2018 Tate Britain, London
ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Aarhus, Denmark
Ordovas, London
2019 Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, London
2020 Marlborough Graphics, London
2021 Defining British Art, 1910-2000, Piano Nobile Gallery, London
Landscape Portrait: Now and Then, Hestercombe Gallery, Hestercombe Gardens Trust, Hestercombe, Taunton
Drawn to paper, Piano Nobile Gallery, London
Leon Kossoff, A Life in Painting, Annely Juda Fine Art, London
2022 Postwar Modern: New Art in Britain 1945-1965, The Barbican, London
The Soul As Sphere, Maximillian William, London
The Art of Industry, STEAM Museum of the Great Western Railway, Swindon
2023 Soutine/Kossoff, Hastings Contemporary, Hastings
Hurvin Anderson Curates, The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield
2025 Soutine and British Painting, Piano Nobile Gallery, London
Selected Public Collections
Alfred East Art Gallery, Kettering, Northampton
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
Arts Council England
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
British Council, London
British Museum, London
Cecil Higgins Art Gallery and Museum, Bedford
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio
Ferens Art Gallery, Hull
Fundação de Arte Moderna e Contemporânea - Colecção Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal
Government Art Collection, London
Guildhall Art Gallery, London
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, District of Columbia
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California
Jewish Museum, New York
Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds
Museums and Galleries, Yorkshire
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark
Malmö Konsthall, Sweden
McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, Canada
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Miejska Galeria Sztuki ul Wólczańska, Łódź, Poland
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Museum of London
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Museum Würth, Künzelsau, Germany
National Museum Wales, Cardiff
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Portrait Gallery, London
New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester
Royal College of Art, London
Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, Warwickshire
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
Southampton City Art Gallery, Hampshire
Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, Wilshire
Tate, London
Touchstones Rochdale, Lancashire
University of Reading Art Collection
Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester
Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut
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Works
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Exhibitions
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Prints I published
12 February - 9 March 2019In 1969 Bernard Jacobson began his career as an art dealer, selling and publishing prints by important contemporary artists from a small fourth-floor gallery in London’s Mayfair. For a gallery... -
Some of the artists I have worked for
10 September - 5 October 2019To end the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the gallery, we are delighted to introduce a selection of works by the artists that helped shaping its success. -
Leon Kossoff: Etchings
1 - 24 September 2022Bernard Jacobson Gallery presents a selection of etchings from the 1980s by British artist Leon Kossoff. The etchings, which were published by Bernard Jacobson, reveal Kossoff’s profound connection to London.
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Art Fairs
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Publications
