Leon Kossoff
Mr. Kossoff found some of his subjects near at hand, like the faltering cherry tree in his backyard. This painting of it is from 2006-7. Credit: Leon Kossoff Estate/Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery
Leon Kossoff, whose expressionistic portraits and images of urban life made him one of the most important painters of postwar Britain, died on July 4 in London. He was 92.
Mr. Kossoff worked in a thick impasto that pitted energetic brushwork against the scenes he depicted. Subject matter flickered in and out of sight, disappearing into and then rising from the painted surface.
Mr. Kossoff’s paintings could be challenging, but they also communicated a great warmth, both for the act of painting and for everyday life.
His subjects were highly specific, and he painted them again and again, sometimes for years on end. The main ones were his family and friends, or models who became friends; the many glories of London (its pedestrians, its streets, its railway and underground stations and their trains); and old master paintings in the National Gallery. One motif for several years around 1970 was a public pool roiling with schoolchildren. His active surfaces had precedent in artists ranging from Rembrandt to Constable to van Gogh to Chaim Soutine and Willem de Kooning.
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