Leon Kossoff was a British painter best known for his Expressionist portraits, landscapes of London, and intimate views of his yard. Along with other members of the School of London like R.B. Kitaj, Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud, and Francis Bacon, Kossoff reinvigorated figurative painting during the mid-1970s. His distinctive style is recognizable by its very thick impasto paint, expressive brushwork, and sophisticated use of color, lending his works a manic energy tempered by a subtle and emotionally intimate palette. Of his portraits, he has explained his labored process that take many sittings to complete: “The subject is visited many times and lots of drawings are made, mostly very quickly,” Kossoff has said. “The work...