Kossoff has frequently stressed that however great his admiration for other artists, it all seems far removed from the actual practice of working in the studio:


'It's true certain books seem to burn a hole in my mindcertain painters mean more than otherswe've talked about theseI know I saw various exhibitions when I was a student, yet even fairly recently, though I did dozens of drawings from the Marsyas, I am unable to see how Titian has influenced me. My life-long obsession has been to teach myself to drawSomehow once I start work 'art' stays one side of an invisible barrierIt all works on a much deeper level.' (Leon Kossoff, unpublished interview with JH, 27 July 1987)


His work is not just autodidactic but is about bringing out emotions, exploring relationships and even catharsis. Tellingly, given this highly personal response, his subject matter is intimate and Kossoff's portraits have focused on a small circle of relatives and friends, including his parents, siblings and wife. In the 1970s many of these works were of the artist's father, and in the 1980s one of Kossoff's brothers, Chaim, became one of his principal subjects. The drawings of each man have connections, but whilst those of the artist's father were often uncomfortable, those of Chaim are more relaxed and have a new-found grandeur that distinguishes them as some of Kossoff's most powerful portraits. No longer is a drawing merely a working tool, a means of exploration or a method of refamiliarisation with a subject, now it possesses its own certainty and resolution.

Kossoff's drawings of his brother Chaim of the 1980s are the successor to those of his father from the 1970s but the fragmentation and angularity of the earlier drawings has given way to relaxed, Rubensesque curves. When first exhibited at Anthony d'Offay Gallery in 1993, these portraits had a striking impact: `on entering the exhibition, the first sight was a series of heads of Chaim. Solid and over life size, these drawings dominated the gallery. In each the head fills almost the whole jumbo-size sheet of paper. Their immediacy emphasises the artist's attempt to close the gap between himself and his subject by stripping away all intercession. With each successive picture, Chaim appears more massive and the drawing more Baroque . In the finest portrait in this exhibition, the epic Portrait of Chaim (1988), this mastery is complete.'

Review. Leon Kossoff: Drawings', Modern Painters, Spring 1993, pp.95-96