Painter captured life in London
A CELEBRATED painter of post-war London, Leon Kossoff’s works were featured in an exhibition at the National Gallery in 2007 to wide acclaim.
Although much in demand in the cultural media world, Kossoff shunned interviews, saying he valued his privacy too highly to subject himself to intrusive questions.
Although the National Gallery featured a film about his work in their exhibition, he only allowed his hands to be seen in the footage.
In a rare interview on Channel 4 the artist credited seeing the Rembrandt painting A Woman Bathing In A Stream when he was just nine years old as a huge turning point in his life.
He said: “I don’t know what struck me about it because none of the other paintings in the National Gallery interested me at all but somehow that painting opened up a whole world to me – not a world of painting so much as a way of feeling about life that I hadn’t experienced before.”
Kossoff also once said the reason he took up painting was because he enjoyed staring out of the window as a child.
Born in Islington, north London, to parents Wolf and Rachel, he was evacuated to East Anglia during the war, where he developed an appreciation of watercolourists.
He particularly enjoyed painting landmarks, bridges, stations and St Paul’s Cathedral with crowds moving past.
Last November Kossoff’s painting of Willesden Junction sold at Christie’s for £1.4 million. Reflecting on his work, he once said: “The strange ever-changing light, the endless streets and the shuddering feel of the sprawling city linger in my mind like a faintly glimmering memory of a long forgotten, perhaps never experienced childhood, which, if rediscovered and illuminated, would ameliorate the pain of the present.”
In 1953, Kossoff married Rosalind (also known as Peggy) and began to study at the Royal College of Art.
Three years later he joined Helen Lessore’s Beaux Arts Gallery in Bruton Place, London.
He later taught at Regent Street Polytechnic and the Chelsea School of Art, and at one time he was a regular at life drawing classes at Toynbee Hall.
He declined the offer of being appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Kossoff is survived by Peggy, son David, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. the mountains for the duration of the war.
The family emigrated in 1951 to South Africa where Berlins read Agatha Christie novels to help his English.
It was while living in Johannesburg that he decided to support an English football team. He picked Aston Villa, on the basis that he could easily pronounce the club’s name.
After he moved to London in 1962, where he studied law at the London School of Economics, Berlins was easy to identify at legal gatherings by the claret and blue scarf he wore.
Choosing not to qualify as a barrister, he began work at The Times before joining The Guardian in 1988.
He wrote several books on legal themes and in 2002, together with his wife Lisa Forrell, a play.
He was a devoted stepfather to Lisa’s children, Edward and Anna.