Leon Kossoff

Fischer Fine Arts, Ltd., London
Private Collection
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

London, Fischer Fine Arts, Ltd. (details untraced);
Los Angeles, L.A. Louver Gallery, Leon Kossoff: Recent Work, 1984, illustrated p.24;
Bochum, Museum Bochum, Das Recht des Bildes - Jüdische Perspektivern in der modernen Kunst, 2003-2004, illustrated p.308.

The board is sound. The work appears in excellent original condition with strong impasto throughout. Under ultraviolet light there appear to be no signs of retouching. Held in a dark stained wood box frame with a white backboard. Please telephone the department on 0207 293 6424 if you have any questions about the present work.
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'The London of my memory is not the real city I live in today. Sometimes now it seems like a monster that draws you into its complicated inside. Yet, though changing all the time, its particular location - the river, the hills, the proximity to the sea - seems always present, and the millions of people who have spent their lives passing through its streets and travelling along its underground veins make London, like my studio, a place of chaos, providing an opportunity for continual involvement and activity.' (Leon Kossoff, quoted in Leon Kossoff: Recent Paintings, XLVI Venice Biennale, Amsterdam, 1995, p.10)

Bus Stop, Willesden belongs to a series of works Kossoff commenced during the 1980s depicting his native area of North London. Executed on a grand scale, the works are a celebration of the urban environment in which the banal and the commonplace are transformed into visually exciting and compelling subjects. As Klaus Kertess observed, "Kossoff celebrates the everyday - the haphazard, even unstable community of urban street life. And while he addresses his native city, Kossoff's masterful understanding of light and atmosphere orchestrates the seasonal changes his subjects undergo." (Klaus Kertess in, Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Mitchell-Innes & Nash; London, Annely Juda Fine Art, Leon Kossoff, 2000, p.13)

Intimate and direct, Bus Stop, Willesden shows Kossoff's familiarity with and close observation of his neighbourhood. Initially recorded in sketches, Kossoff builds up his impressions onto canvas, thickly applying paint which is repeatedly scraped off and vigorously reworked until the image emerges – energetic and rich in feeling. The inclusion of the figures is an important element underlying Kossoff's central artistic concern: the transformation of a specific location by the trace of human presence. He achieves in the end result monumental works that are arresting and atmospherically evocative.  Bus Stop, Willesden is an exemplary painting from the series, revealing the best of Kossoff's long term artistic engagement with London's urban landscape. 'London, like the paint I use seems to be on my bloodstream. It's always moving- the skies, the streets, the buildings, the people that walk past me when I draw, have become part of my life.'  (The artist cited in, Exhibition Catalogue, London, Tate Gallery, Leon Kossoff, 1996, p.36)