In contrast to Sickert, who was a prolific writer of letters, reviews, essays and polemics, Kossoff has seldom written about his work or given interviews, believing that his pictures should speak for themselves. When he has done so, he has echoed Sickert both in his emphasis on drawing and his response to the nude. He began a short essay that he wrote for the catalogue of Frank Auerbach's Arts Council retrospective in 1978 with a quotation from Walter Sickert that also encapsulates his own concerns: the chief pleasure, in the aspect of a nude, is that it is in the nature of a gleam - a gleam of light and warmth and life.(1)Kossoff's first sight of Sickert's work came as early as 1944, coinciding with life-drawing classes from Ruskin Spear and he was also 'knocked sideways' when he first saw the Servant of Abraham and Lazarus Breaks his Fast at the Beaux Arts Gallery in the 1950s, which he still regards as of the most beautiful paintings of our time.(2)in Sickert's paintings, there is nothing ingratiating about Kossoff's nudes. In Sally no.I paint and flesh are one. Indeed there is a fleshiness to the whole picture surface, whether it be the woman or her surroundings.

1. Walter Sickert, quoted in Leon Kossoff, 'The Paintings of Frank Auerbach' in Frank Auerbach, Arts Council, 1978

2 . Leon Kossoff, letter to JH, 17 December 1987