Leon Kossoff, b.1926

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 2^nd 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

1957-1964
Six exhibitions at the Beaux Arts Gallery, London

1979 and 1984
Fischer Fine Art, London

1966
Marlborough Fine Art, London

1972
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London

1973;1975;1979
Fischer Fine Art, London

1981
Museum of Modern Art, Oxford

1982
L.A. Louver, Los Angeles

1983
Hirschl and Adler Modern, New York

1984
Fischer Fine Art, London

1988; 1993
Anthony D’Offay Gallery, London

1995
Venice Biennale

1996
Tate Gallery, London

2000
Annely Juda Gallery, London

2002
Leon Kossoff: Drawn to Painting after Poussin, Rubens and Other Related Works, Pillsbury & Peters Fine Art, Dallas, Texas

2002
Leon Kossoff, Annandale Galleries, Sydney


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