Leon Kossoff: Drawn from Revelry

This presentation dives into two series of images made by Leon Kossoff after, and often in front of, paintings and drawings by Nicholas Poussin. In these works, Kossoff captures the Dionysian revelry and compositional rigor of the classical master, all channeled through his own particular style of urgent, energetic drawing. Kossoff had a lifelong practice of drawing from the Old Masters, most often in the galleries of London’s National Gallery. His process encompassed hundreds of drawings, completed very quickly, made in order to achieve a visual intimacy with his subject, be it a classical painting, a model in the studio, or the landscape around him. Drawing was his foundation, a means of knowing, remembering, experiencing, and “seeing” the world.

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