Leon Kossoff (1926 –2019) was a British figurative painter known for portraits and London cityscapes. The same themes recur in his prints. Like many of his contemporaries such as Frank Auerbach and Lucian Freud, Kossoff approached printmaking as a draughtsman. His etchings demonstrate how printmaking enabled Kossoff to pursue and expand his investigation of ‘line’. The many surviving states of his print proofs demonstrate a constant striving for perfection, driving him to rework his compositions, sometimes even after an edition had been printed.

In 1998 Kossoff made a number of etchings after paintings by Old Masters – Poussin, Rembrandt and Veronese - were not intended to be seen as copies, they were an exploration of the original paintings. By stripping the compositions of their colours, Kossoff looked beyond the ornamental surface of the works to further his understanding of the artists themselves. Of his etchings after Poussin he said: ‘The truth about my encounter with Poussin is in the few brief moments spent before the paintings, making marks on the plates. It was like working in the dark, I could hardly see what I was doing.’ The initial proofs were developed in collaboration with the artist Ann Dowker and further proofs were printed and editioned by Marc Balakjian of Studio Prints.