Leon Kossoff
Everyday London
New York, 515 West 19th Street
The exhibition displays fifteen drawings of one of Britain’s pre-eminent living artists Leon Kossoff (b. 1926). The selected works come together from the artist’s studio. Spanning 60 years, each work exists as a contemporary snapshot, recording the pulse of everyday London.
The exhibition offers a retrospective view of the artist’s most well known subjects, capturing subtle glimpses into the nuances of his city from 1952 to 2012. In sweeping, seemingly spontaneous charcoal compositions, Kossoff presents a life in London; the movement of urban dwellers and the fabric around which their lives are defined. Views of Christ Church, 1992, King's Cross Building Site Early Days, 2003, and Arnold Circus, 2008-2012, have become Kossoff’s classic landscapes, while the implied commuters in Train by Night, 1990, Inside Kilburn Underground Booking Hall Summer No.2, 1983, and The Flower Stall, Embankment Station, 1994, are his unseen ghostlike subjects.
Leon Kossoff drawings are every bit as searching as his paintings. The paintings summon up observations made over time (sometimes a very long time). The drawings - done from life as it were - seize the moment, asserting the look and feel of a particular place, at a particular time, in a particular light. Their energy fills the drawing sheet and sketchbook page.
– Andrea Rose, Kossoff’s London, 2013
through May 4, 2019
