Leaving the Station No. 2

Details

Leon Kossoff (b. 1926)
Leaving the Station No. 2
charcoal and pastel on paper
25 x 22 in. (63.5 x 56 cm.)
Executed in 1990.

Provenance

with LA Louver Inc, California.
with Anthony d'Offay, London, where purchased by the present owner in July 1995.

Literature

P. Moorhouse, exhibition catalogue, Leon Kossoff, London, Tate Gallery, 1996, p. 35, fig. 49.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis. Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Lot Essay

Kossoff had met Auerbach during his first year at St Martin's and, at Auerbach's suggestion, he attended David Bomberg's evening classes at Borough Polytechnic in South London, during 1950-2. Under Bomberg's tuterlage Kossoff developed greater confidence and freedom in his drawing technique and commented that, 'Coming to Bomberg's classes was like coming home' (see P. Moorhouse, op. cit, p. 12).

The present work depicts a train leaving Willesden Green Underground station in North London, which Kossoff would have executed from a bridge near his studio. It is very close in composition to his oil, From Willesden Green, Autumn, 1991 (private collection) and in both works a group of workman in orange jackets are visible, standing at the side of the track. This subject matter of a train leaving a station provided Kossoff with the opportunity to create a dynamic composition with strong diagonals and long sweeping strokes suggesting the speed with which the train is departing.

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