The Flower and Fruit Stalls, Embankment 1995 by Leon Kossoff

The Flower and Fruit Stalls, Embankment 1995 1995

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Dimensions: support: 1828 x 2031 mm

Copyright: © Leon Kossoff | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate

Curator: Leon Kossoff, born in 1926, created "The Flower and Fruit Stalls, Embankment" in 1995. It now resides in the Tate Collections. Editor: The sheer physicality of the paint is striking! It feels almost sculptural. Curator: Kossoff was deeply invested in capturing the energy of post-war London. His thick impasto became his signature, reflecting the gritty reality and resilience of urban life. Editor: And the way he builds up those layers suggests a process of constant revision, almost a wrestling with the materials to extract the image. It makes you think about the labor involved. Curator: Indeed. He revisited the same locations repeatedly, driven by a desire to record fleeting moments of everyday life. The Embankment, with its vibrant market activity, was a frequent subject. Editor: All those bodies crammed together in an oppressive space. The flowers and fruit are like momentary splashes of color in a gray, consuming world. Curator: Kossoff's art reminds us that even the most mundane scenes carry historical weight. Editor: He transformed the ordinary into something powerfully felt, through the materiality of paint.

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tate about 1 month ago

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kossoff-the-flower-and-fruit-stalls-embankment-1995-t07297

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tate's Profile Picture
tate about 1 month ago

The Flower and Fruit Stalls, Embankment 1995 is a large oil painting on hardboard by the British painter and draughtsman Leon Kossoff. In the foreground five figures move either away from or towards Embankment Underground station in London. A female figure in an orange dress is prominent among this group and walks purposefully from the centre of the composition to the right of the foreground. She passes another, less sharply delineated female figure who is walking towards the station. One male figure painted in white and blue moves out of the composition at the extreme left, while a second man outlined heavily in dark blue paint pauses to glance at a flower stand. A woman in a pale blue dress crouches to reach some of the flowers in front of the stand and another figure, possibly the stall’s vendor, stands behind her in the middle ground. What appear to be four parasols in brighter colours are spaced horizontally across the middle of the composition. The background is peopled by shadowy, rapidly painted figures who blend with the architectural features of the stands and the station. The sharply angled awnings of the fruit stand and the station give a sense of depth, and mauves, blues, pinks and creams dominate the composition, punctuated by oranges and yellows.