Known for his expressive portraits and London landscapes, draftsman, printmaker, and painter Leon Kossoff (b. 1926) is one of the most significant British artists of the past fifty years. A member of the School of London––a group of loosely representational painters including Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, and Lucian Freud––Kossoff views drawing as fundamental to the artistic process and has turned to art history for inspiration throughout his career.

This handsome book features a selection of drawings and prints made over thirty years after paintings by such artists as Poussin, Rubens, Velázquez, Degas, Cézanne, and Goya. Absorbing essays discuss how Kossoff has used this body of drawings to inform his original paintings and analyze how the particular influence of Old Masters has been incorporated into his work.

Colin Wiggins, deputy head of education at the National Gallery, London, has contributed to many books, including John Virtue: London Paintings, Ron Mueck, and Kitaj: In the Aura of Cézanne and Other Masters, all published by Yale. Philip Conisbee, senior curator of European paintings at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, is author of Cézanne in Provence (Yale), among other titles. Juliet Wilson-Bareau is an independent art historian and writer who has published widely on Spanish painting, Manet, and Goya.