Footnotes

Provenance
Private Collection
Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York
Private Collection, London (acquired from the above in 2022)

Exhibited
London, Annely Juda Fine Art, Leon Kossoff, A Life in Painting, 30 September - 4 December 2021 (later travelled to New York, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, 13 January - 5 March 2022; Venice CA, L.A. Louver, 26 January - 26 March 2022) (illustrated p. 80)

Literature
Andrea Rose, Leon Kossoff Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, London, 2021, no. 425 (illustrated p. 501)



Central to Leon Kossoff's practice is a painstaking and dynamic engagement with his medium and subject, an encounter that unfolds through thickly applied, heavily reworked layers of paint. His canvases, built up through dense impasto and vigorous, almost sculptural brushwork, reveal a lived process of continual revision. This method reflects Kossoff's conviction that painting is not merely the creation of a likeness but a struggle to capture the essence of a subject in all its complexity and immediacy. Self-Portrait, painted in 1993, demonstrates Kossoff's mastery of texture where the surface transforms the painted figure into an almost three-dimensional presence. The thick, encrusted layers of pigment render the artist's own visage with palpable physicality, lending the painting a weighty, commanding presence that confronts the viewer directly.

Hailed as one of Britain's most acclaimed painters, Kossoff is celebrated for his profoundly gestural impasto paintings and his striking, expressive drawings. The artist emerged as a key figure within the School of London, alongside other renowned figures such as Frank Auerbach and Francis Bacon in the mid-1950s, who collectively reaffirmed the power of figuration at a time when abstraction dominated the art world.

The tactile quality of the present work animates the portrait, revealing the artist's rigorous painting process. Each session in the studio involved repeated layers of paint painstakingly applied, with Kossoff often scraping down the board entirely and rebuilding the image from scratch, a testament to his relentless pursuit of authenticity and emotional truth. This laborious process is not simply technical but deeply expressive. Gallerist and critic Klaus Kertess has described Kossoff's heads as 'precarious likenesses,' where the 'muted earthen tones, monumental scale, and visceral layering of loaded brushstrokes all congeal' into portraits that reveal the simultaneous struggle of painter and painted for identity. (Klaus Kertess, Leon Kossoff, London, 2000, p. 10). The thickness of the impasto allows subtle modulations of light to suffuse and transform the face, heightening the psychological complexity of the image.

Throughout his career, Kossoff remained steadfastly committed to figuration, focusing on friends, family, urban London landscapes, and especially self-portraits. His work embodies an introspection, revealing the physicality of aging and the vulnerability of human existence. As evidenced in the present work, his self-portraits, in particular, become a site of psychological exploration, a meditation on identity, mortality, and the act of self-examination that resonates deeply with viewers. Kossoff's gaze meets ours, instilling a profound intimacy and immediacy that transcends the traditional relationship between artist and sitter. Where portraits of friends and family hinge on the tension between painter and subject, his self-portraits replace this with an intensified dialogue between artist and audience, inviting us into a meditative confrontation with identity and mortality.

Kossoff's international recognition saw him represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1995, just two years after the present work was executed, and today his works are held in major institutions and collections around the globe. His legacy endures as that of an artist who, through relentless engagement with his materials and subjects, forged a unique visual language defined by emotional intensity, formal innovation, and profound humanity.

Self-Portrait distills the essence of Kossoff's artistic philosophy; a poignant exploration of presence, vulnerability, and the lived experience of being. The painting's thick, tactile surface is not merely a formal device but a profound manifestation of the artist's intimate struggle to understand and represent the image of oneself. Through layers of pigment that seem to breathe and pulse with life, Kossoff invites us into a raw and unvarnished dialogue with identity and mortality. His work stands as a testament to the enduring power of figuration to convey emotional depth and human complexity. Ultimately, Kossoff's oeuvre challenges viewers to confront the physicality of existence and the nuances of perception, affirming his enduring influence in contemporary art.