Nude on Red Bed no. 1

"From the late 1960s [Kossoff] came increasingly to feel unable to commence a painting before experiencing through drawing that momentary confirmation of his relationship with a subject...Committing the image to paint would be carried out with great urgency, with a sense that the image is communicated directly and not entirely with conscious control...Nude on a Red Bed No. 1 belongs to the period immediately preceding the first swimming pool painting. The image is carried by the movement of paint, which sweeps in a continuous flow of energy around the board" (P. Moorhouse, exh. cat., London 1996 op. cit., pp. 22-23).