Going Home

Catalogue entry

Leon Kossoff born 1926

P77052 Going Home 1984

Drypoint, etching and aquatint 404 x 514 (15 7/8 x 20 1/4) on Somerset cream paper 579 x 663 (22 3/4 x 26 1/8); plate-mark 404 x 514 (15 7/8 x 20 1/4); proofed by the artist and Anne Dowker, printed by Mark Balakjian at Studio Prints and published by Bernard Jacobson Gallery in an edition of 60
Inscribed ‘L Kossoff 84' below image b.r., ‘54/60' below image b.l. and ‘Going Home' below image bottom centre
Purchased from Bernard Jacobson Gallery (Grant-in-Aid) 1984
Lit: Elizabeth Underhill, ‘Outside Kilburn Underground by Leon Kossoff', Print Quarterly, vol.1, Sept. 1984, pp.193-8; ‘Going Home', Print Collector's Newsletter, vol.15, July-Aug. 1984, p.105

The following entry has been approved by the artist. Unless otherwise stated, all quotations are the artist's replies to a questionnaire posed by the compiler in June 1988.

The subject of ‘Going Home' is the booking hall of Kilburn Underground Station seen from the Christchurch Avenue entrance. Kossoff began working on this etching at the same time as ‘Outside Kilburn Underground' (see P02933, P02934, P02935, P02936, P02937 and P77103). As in ‘Outside Kilburn Underground' two of the figures in the composition, namely the elderly couple in the right foreground, represent the artist's parents. Behind the figures may be seen, at left: a kiosk, at right: a ticket machine and beyond: steps leading to the platforms; the layout of the ticket hall has since been altered.

Although a final state was not realised until 1984, ‘Going Home' was not, according to Elizabeth Underhill, ‘so extensively reworked' as ‘Outside Kilburn Underground' and she quotes Kossoff as stating that ‘we [the artist and Anne Dowker] stopped at the first print that worked' (Underhill 1983, p.196). Nevertheless, the four stage proofs in the Tate's collection reveal that the plate was, like ‘Outside Kilburn Underground', subject to an ongoing process of change. Although the exact sequence is not known, internal evidence suggests that the stage proofs were pulled in the following order: P02938, P02939, P02941, P02940. In P02938 the main elements were sketched in a light line and these were subsequently strengthened and details added in P02939. In P02941 tonality was defined by areas of aquatint broken by islands of stopping-out. P02940 is closest to the final state (P77052) in its linear characteristics and tonal values. According to Kossoff, such changes were made in the plate in order ‘to deepen, to enrich, to particularise, the print'. Although Kossoff again collaborated with Anne Dowker during proofing of ‘Going Home', the final edition was printed by Mark Balakjian at Studio Prints. As with ‘Outside Kilburn Underground', preparatory drawings were used although Kossoff has observed that ‘I have been drawing from this subject over the years', and he was not able to identify the exact drawings to which he referred. See P77103, P02933, P02934, P02935, P02936 and P02937 for a discussion of related drawings and paintings.

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1984-86: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions Including Supplement to Catalogue of Acquisitions 1982-84, Tate Gallery, London 1988, pp.400-1

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