Leon Kossoff

Born in 1926, Leon Kossoff has been described as one of the greatest British artists of the past four decades. He grew up in the East End and has lived in London all his life. The changing face of London's urban landscape has been a recurring subject of his work, as he has returnned to paint and drawparticular places from the metropolis where he was born. Key locations include Christ Church, Spitafields, Willesden, Killburn and Embankment Underground Stations. More recently he produced a powerful new series on King's Cross station and Pentonville Road.

The human figure also continues to be a major preoccupation and for over forty years the artist has painted a limited range of subjects, mostly members of his own family, close friends and a small number of models of long acquaintance. These works are deeply moving moving evocations of the human presence. He is an artist who enjoys working directly with his material building up his thickly layered, almost sculptura, paintings in a deep emotional response to the real and visible world as he experiences it.